 Hopfrog by Edgar Allen Poe. I never knew anyone so keenly alive to a jerk as the King was. He seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind, and to tell it well, was the surest road to his favor. Thus it happened that his seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokers. They all took after the King, too, in being large, corpulent oily men, as well as inimitable jokers. Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine. But certain it is that a lean joker is a rarer avis in terrace. About the refinements, or as he called them, the ghost of wit, the King troubled himself very little. He had an especial admiration for breadth in a jest, and would often put up with length for the sake of it. Over niceties wearied him. He would have preferred rabbley gargantua to the zadig of Voltaire, and upon the whole practical jokes suited his taste far better than verbal ones. At the date of my narrative, professing jesters had not altogether gone out of fashion at court. Several of the great continental powers still retained their fools, who wore motley, with caps and bells, and who were expected to be always ready with sharp witticisms at a moment's notice, in consideration of the crumbs that fell from the royal table. Our King, as a matter of course, retained his fool. The fact is, he required something in the way of folly, if only to counterbalance the heavy wisdom of the seven wise men who were his ministers, not to mention himself. His fool, or professional jester, was not only a fool, however. His value was trebled in the eyes of the King, by the fact of his being also a dwarf and a cripple. Dwarfs were as common at court in those days as fools, and many monarchs would have found it difficult to get through their days, days are rather longer at court than elsewhere, without both a jester to laugh with, and a dwarf to laugh at. But, as I have already observed, your jesters, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, are fat, round, and unwieldy, so that it was no small source of self-gradulation with our King, that in Hopfrog, this was the fool's name, he possessed a triplicate treasure in one person. I believe the name Hopfrog was not that given to the dwarf by his sponsors at baptism, but it was conferred upon him by general consent of the several ministers on account of his inability to walk as other men do. In fact, Hopfrog could only get along by a sort of interjectional gait, something between a leap and a wriggle, a movement that afforded a limitable amusement, and of course consolation to the King, for notwithstanding the protuberance of his stomach, and a constitutional swelling of the head, the King by his whole court was accounted a capital figure. But although Hopfrog, through the distortion of his legs, could move only with great pain and difficulty along a road or floor, the prodigious muscular power which nature seemed to have bestowed upon his arms by way of compensation for deficiency in the lower limbs, enabled him to perform many feats of wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes were in question, or anything else to climb. At such exercises, he certainly much more resembled a squirrel or a small monkey than a frog. I am not able to say with precision from what country Hopfrog originally came. It was from some barbarous region, however, that no person ever heard of, of our distance from the court of our King. Hopfrog, and a young girl very little less dwarfish than himself, although of exquisite proportions and a marvellous dancer, had been forcibly carried off from their respective homes in adjoining provinces, and sent as presence to the King by one of his ever-victorious generals. Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that a close intimacy arose between the two little captives. Indeed, they soon became sworn friends. Hopfrog, who, although he made a great deal of sport, was by no means popular, had it not in his power to render trepeter many services. But she, on account of her grace and exquisite beauty, although a dwarf, was universally admired and petted, so she possessed much influence, and never failed to use it, whenever she could, for the benefit of Hopfrog. On some grand state occasion, I forget what, the King determined to have a masquerade, and whenever the masquerade, or anything of that kind, occurred at our court, then the talents both of Hopfrog and trepeter were sure to be called into play. Hopfrog, in a special, was so inventive in the way of getting up pageants, suggesting novel characters, and arranging costumes for mass balls that nothing could be done, it seems, without his assistance. The night appointed for the FET had arrived. A gorgeous hall had been fitted up under trepeter's eye, with every kind of device which could possibly give a klar to a masquerade. The whole court was in a fever of expectation. As for costumes and characters, it might well be supposed that everybody had come to a decision on such points. Many had made up their minds as to what roles they should assume, a week, or even a month in advance. And in fact, there was not a particle of indecision anywhere, except in the case of the King and his seven ministers. Why, they hesitated, I never could tell, unless they did it by way of a joke. More probably, they found it difficult on account of being so fat to make up their mind. At all events, time flew, and as a last resort, they sent for trepeter and Hopfrog. When the two little friends obeyed the summons of the King, they found him sitting at his wine with the seven members of his cabinet council. But the monarch appeared to be in very ill humour. He knew that Hopfrog was not found of wine, for it excited the poor cripple almost to madness, and madness is no comfortable feeling. But the King loved his practical jokes, and took pleasure in forcing Hopfrog to drink, and as the King called it, to be merry. Come here, Hopfrog, said he, as the jester and his friend entered the room. Swallow this mubba to the health of your absent friends. Here, Hopfrog sighed, and then let us have the benefit of your invention. We want characters, characters, man, something novel, out of the way. We are worried with this everlasting sameness. Come, drink, the wine will brighten your wits. Hopfrog endeavoured, as usual, to get up a jest in reply to these advances from the King. But the effort was too much. It happened to be the poor dwarf's birthday, and the command to drink to his absent friends forced the tears to his eyes. Many large bitter drops fell into the goblet as he took it humbly from the hand of the tyrant. Ha-ha-ha! roared the latter, as the dwarf reluctantly drained the beaker. See what a glass of good wine can do! Why, your eyes are shining already! Or, fellow, his large eyes gleamed rather than Sean, for the effect of wine on his excitable brain was not more powerful than instantaneous. He placed the goblet nervously on the table, and looked round upon the company with a half-insane stare. They all seemed highly amused at the success of the King's joke. And now to business, said the Prime Minister, a very fat man. Yes, said the King. Come, lend us your assistance. Characters, my fine fellow, we stand in need of characters, all of us. Ha-ha-ha! And as this was seriously meant for the joke, his laugh was chorished by the seven. Hopfrog also laughed, although feebly and somewhat vacantly. Come, come, said the King, impatiently. Have you nothing to suggest? I am endeavouring to think of something novel, replied the dwarf, abstractedly, for he was quite bewildered by the wine. Endeavouring! cried the tyrant fiercely. What do you mean by that? Ah, I perceive, you are sulky, and want more wine. Yeah, drink this! And he poured out another goblet fool and offered it to the cripple, who merely gazed at it, gasping for breath. Drink, I say! shouted the monster. Or buy the fiends! The dwarf hesitated. The King grew purple with rage. The courtiers smirked. Trepeter, pale as a corpse, advanced to the monarch's seat, and falling on her knees before him implored him to spare her friend. The tyrant regarded her for some moments in evident wonder at her audacity. He seemed quite at a loss what to do or say, how most becomingly to express his indignation. At last, without uttering a syllable, he pushed her violently from him, and threw the contents of the brimming goblet in her face. The poor girl got up the best she could, and not daring even to sigh resumed her position at the foot of the table. There was a dead silence for about half a minute, during which the falling of a leaf or of a feather might have been heard. It was interrupted by a low but harsh and protracted grating sound, which seemed to come at once from every corner of the room. What? But what are you making that noise for? Demanded the king, turning furiously to the dwarf. The latter seemed to have recovered in great measure from his intoxication, and looking fixedly but quietly into the tyrant's face merely ejaculated. Aye? Aye? How could it have been me? The sound appeared to come from without, observed one of the courtiers. I fancy it was the parrot at the window, wetting his bill upon his cage-wires. True, replied the monarch, as if much relieved by the suggestion, but on the honour of a night I could have sworn that it was the gritting of this vagabond's teeth. Here, upon the dwarf laughed, the king was too confirmed a joker to object to anyone's laughing, and displayed a set of large, powerful, and very repulsive teeth. Moreover, he avowed his perfect willingness to swallow as much wine as desired. The monarch was pacified, and having drained another bumper with no very perceptible ill effect, hopfrog entered at once, and with spirit, into the plans for the masquerade. I cannot tell you what was the association of idea. Observed he very tranquilly, and as if he had never tasted wine in his life. But just after your majesty had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her face, just after your majesty had done this, and while the parrot was making that odd noise outside the window, there came into my mind a capital diversion, one of my own country frolics. Often enacted among us at our masquerades, but here it will be new altogether. Unfortunately, however, it requires a company of eight persons, and here we are, cried the king, laughing at his acute discovery of the coincidence. Eight to a fraction. I and my seven ministers. Come, what is the diversion? We call it, replied the cripple, the eight chained orangutans, and it really is excellent sport, if well enacted. We will enact it, remarked the king, drawing himself up and lowering his eyelids. The beauty of the game, continued hopfrog, lies in the fright at occasions among the women. Capital, roared and chorused the monarch in his ministry. I will equip you as orangutans, proceeded the dwarf. Leave all that to me. The resemblance shall be so striking, that the company of masqueraders will take you for real beasts, and of course, they will be as much terrified as astonished. Oh, this is exquisite, exclaimed the king. Hopfrog, I will make a man of you. The chains are for the purpose of increasing the confusion by their jangling. You are supposed to have escaped en masse from your keepers. Your images, they cannot conceive the effect produced at a masquerade by eight chained orangutans. Imagine to be real ones by most of the company, and rushing in with savage cries among the crowd of delicately and gorgeously habited men and women. The contrast is inimitable. It must be, said the king, and the council arose hurriedly, as it was growing late, to put in execution the scheme of hopfrog. His mode of equipping the party as orangutans was very simple, but effective enough for his purposes. The animals in question had, at the epic of my story, very rarely been seen in any part of the civilized world. And as the imitations made by the dwarf were sufficiently beast-like, and more than sufficiently hideous, their truthfulness to nature was thus thought to be secure. The king and his ministers were first encased in tight-fitting stockinette shirts and drawers. They were then saturated with tar. At this stage of the process, some one of the party suggested feathers, but their suggestion was at once overruled by the dwarf, who soon convinced the eight by ocular demonstration that the hair of such a brute as the orangutan was much more efficiently represented by flu. A thick coating of the latter was accordingly plastered upon the coating of tar. A long chain was now procured. First it was passed about the waist of the king, and tied, then about another of the party, and also tied, then about all successively in the same manner. When this chaining arrangement was complete, and the party stood as far apart from each other as possible, they formed a circle, and to make all things appear natural, hopfrog passed the residue of the chain in two diameters at right angles across the circle, after the fashion adopted at the present day by those who capture chimpanzees or other large apes in Borneo. The grand saloon in which the masquerade was to take place was a circular room, very lofty, and receiving the light of the sun only through a single window at top. At night, the season for which the apartment was especially designed, it was illuminated principally by a large chandelier, depending by a chain from the center of the skylight, and lowered or elevated by means of a counterbalance as usual, but in order not to look unsightly, this latter passed outside the cupola and over the roof. The arrangements of the room had been left to torpedo's superintendents. But in some particulars, it seems, she had been guided by the calmer judgment of her friend the dwarf. At his suggestion it was that, on this occasion, the chandelier was removed. Its waxen drippings, which in weather so warm it was quite impossible to prevent, would have been seriously detrimental to the rich dresses of the guests, who, on account of the crowded state of the saloon, could not all be expected to keep out from its center, that is to say, from under the chandelier. Additional sconces were set in various parts of the hall, out of the wall, and a flambeau, emitting sweet odor, was placed in the right hand of each of the cariatids that stood against the wall, some fifty or sixty altogether. The eight orangutans, taking hopfrogs advice, waited patiently until midnight, when the room was thoroughly filled with masqueraders, before making their appearance. No sooner had the clock cease striking, however, than they rushed, or rather rolled in, altogether, for the impediments of their chains caused most of the party to fall, and all to stumble as they entered. The excitement among the masqueraders was prodigious, and filled the heart of the king with glee. As had been anticipated, there were not a few of the guests who supposed the ferocious-looking creatures to be beasts of some kind in reality, if not precisely orangutans. Many of the women swooned with the fright, and had not the king taken the precaution to exclude all weapons from the saloon, his party might soon have expiated their frolic in their blood. As it was, a general rush was made for the doors, but the king had ordered them to be locked immediately upon his entrance, and at the dwarf's suggestion the keys had been deposited with him. While the Talmalt was at its height, in each masquerader attentive only to his own safety, for in fact there was much real danger from the pressure of the excited crowd. The chain by which the chandelier ordinarily hung, and which had been drawn up on its removal, might have been seen very gradually to descend, until its hooked extremity came within three feet of the floor. Soon after this, the king and his seven friends, having reeled about the hall in all directions, found themselves at length in its centre, and of course in immediate contact with the chain. While they were thus situated, the dwarf, who had followed noiselessly at their heels, inciting them to keep up the commotion, took hold of their own chain at the intersection of the two portions which crossed the circle diametrically and at right angles. Here, with the rapidity of thought, he inserted the hook from which the chandelier had been want to depend, and in an instant by some unseen agency the chandelier chain was drawn so far upward as to take the hook out of reach, and as an inevitable consequence to drag the orangutans together in close connection and face to face. The masqueraders by this time had recovered in some measure from their alarm, and beginning to regard the whole matter as a well-contrived pleasantry, set up a loud shout of laughter at the predicament of the apes. "'Live them to me!' now screamed Hopfrog, his shrill voice making itself easily heard through all the din. "'Live them to me! I fancy I know them. If I can only get a good look at them, I can soon tell who they are.' Here, scrambling over the heads of the crowd, he managed to get to the wall. When seizing a flambeau from one of the cariatids, he returned as he went to the centre of the room, leaping with the agility of a monkey upon the king's head, and thence clambered a few feet up the chain, holding down the torch to examine the group of orangutans and still screaming, "'I shall soon find out who they are!' And now, while the whole assembly the apes included were convulsed with laughter, the gesture suddenly uttered a shrill whistle, when the chain flew violently up for about thirty feet, dragging with it the dismayed and struggling orangutans, and leaving them suspended in mid-air between the skylight and the floor. Hopfrog, clinging to the chain as it rose, still maintained his relative position in respect to the eight maskers, and still, as if nothing were the matter, continued to thrust his torch down toward them, as though endeavouring to discover who they were. So thoroughly astonished was the whole company at this ascent, that a dead silence of about a minute's duration ensued. It was broken by just such a low, harsh grating sound, as had before attracted the attention of the king and his counsellors when the former threw the wine in the face of Tripeta. But on the present occasion there could be no question as to whence the sound issued. It came from the fang-like teeth of the dwarf, who ground them, and gnashed them as he foamed the mouth, and glared with an expression of maniac rage into the upturned countenances of the king and his seven companions. Ah-ha! said at length the infuriated jester. Ah-ha! I begin to see who these people are now. He ere pretending to scrutinize the king more closely, he held the flambeau to the flaxen coat which enveloped him, and which instantly burst into a sheet of vivid flame. In less than half a minute the whole eight orangutans were blazing fiercely amid the shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken, and without the power to render them their slightest assistance. At length the flames, suddenly increasing in virulence, forced the jester to climb higher up the chain to be out of their reach, and as he made this movement the crowd again sank for a brief instant into silence. The dwarf seized his opportunity, and once more spoke. I now see distinctly, he said, what manner of people these masqueraders are. They are a great king and his seven privy-counsellors, a king who does not scruple to strike a defenseless girl, and his seven counsellors who abet him in the outrage. As for myself, I am simply hop-frog the jester, and this is my last jester. Owing to the high combustibility of both the flax and the tar to which it adhered, the dwarf had scarcely made an end of his brief speech, before the work of vengeance was complete. The eight corpses swung in their chains, a fetid, blackened, hideous, and indistinguishable mass. The cripple hurled his torch at them, clambered leisurely to the ceiling, and disappeared through the sky-light. It is supposed that Tripetta, stationed on the roof of the saloon, had been the accomplice of her friend in his fiery revenge, and that together they affected their escape to their own country, for neither was seen again. I first got sight of the house from the bro of the mountain, as I cleared the woods, and looked across the broad valley several feet below me, to the low sun sinking toward the far blue hills. From that momentary viewpoint, I had an exaggerated sense of looking almost vertically down. I seemed to be hanging over the checkerboard of roads and fields, dotted with farm buildings, and felt the familiar reception that I could almost throw a stone upon the house. I barely glimpsed its slate roof. What got my eyes was the bit of road in front of it, between the mass of dark green trees above the house, and the orchard opposite. Perfectly straight it was, bordered by an even-roofed tree, through which I made out a cinder-side path and a low stone wall. Conspicuous on the orchard side between two of the flanking trees was a white object, which I took to be a tall stone, a vertical splinter of one of the tilted limestone reefs with which the fields of the region are scarred. The road itself I saw plain as a boxwood ruler on a green base table. It gave me a pleasurable anticipation of a chance for a burst of speed. I had been painfully traversing closely forested, semi-mountainous hills. Not a farmhouse had I passed, only regged cabins by the road, more than twenty miles of which I had found very bad and hindering. Now, when I was not many miles from my expected stopping place, I looked forward to better going, and to that straight level bit in particular. As I sped cautiously down the sharp beginning of the long decent, the trees engulfed me again, and I lost sight of the valley. I dipped into a hollow, rose on the crest of the next hill, and again saw the house nearer and not so far below. The tall stone got my eye with a shock of surprise. Had I not thought it was opposite the house next the orchard, clearly it was on the left-hand side of the road toward the house. Myself questioning only lasted the moment as I passed the crest. Then the outlook was cut off again, but I found myself gazing ahead, watching for the next chance at the same view. At the end of the second hill, I only saw the bit of road obliquely and could not be sure, but as at first, the tall stone seemed on the right of the road. At the top of the third and last hill, I looked down the stretch of road, under the overarching trees, almost as one would look through a tube. There was a line of whiteness which I took for the tall stone. It was on the right. I dipped into the last hollow. As I mounted the father's slope, I kept my eyes on the top of the road ahead of me. When my line of sights are mounted the rise, I mark the tall stone on my right hand among the serried maples. I leaned over first on one side then on the other, to inspect my tires, then I threw the lever. As I flew forward, I looked ahead. There was the tall stone. On the left of the road, I was really scared in almost dazed. I meant to stop dead, to take a good look at the stone and make up my mind beyond per adventure, whether it was on the right or on the left. If not indeed in the middle of the road. In my beveled moment, I put on the highest speed. The machine leaped forward. Everything I touched went wrong. I steered wildly, clued to the left and crashed into a big maple. When I came to my senses, I was flat on my back in the dry ditch. The last rays of the sun sent shafts of golden green light through the maple buff's overhead. My first thought was an odd mixture of appreciation, the beauties of nature and disapproval of my own conduct, entworing without a companion. A fad I had regretted more than once. Then my mind cleared and I set up. I felt myself from the head down. I was not bleeding, no bones were broken, and while much shaken I had suffered no serious bruises. Then I saw the boy. He was standing at the edge of the cinder path near the ditch. He was so stocky and solidly built, barefoot with his trousers rolled up to his knees, wore a sort of button or shirt, open at the throat, and was coatless and hatless. He was toe-headed with a shock of tousled hair and much freckled, and had a hideous hairlip. He shifted from one foot to the other, twiddled his toes, and said nothing whatever, though he stared at me intently. I scrambled to my feet and proceeded to survey the rack. It seemed distressingly complete. It had not blown up, not even caught fire, but otherwise the ruin appeared hopelessly thorough. Everything I examined seemed worse smashed than the rest. My two hampers alone, by one of those cynical jokes of chance, had escaped. Both had pitched clear of the wreckage and were unhurt, not even a bottle broken. During my investigations, the boy's faded eyes followed me continuously, but he uttered no word. When I had convinced myself of my helplessness, I straightened up and addressed him. How far is it to a blacksmith's shop? Eight miles. He answered. He had a distressing case of cleft palate and was scarcely intelligible. Can you drive me there? I inquired. Narry team on the place, he replied. Narry horse, Narry cow. How far to the next house? I continued. Six mile, he responded. I glanced at the sky. The sun had already set. I looked at my watch. It was going seven thirty-six. May I sleep in your house tonight? I asked. You can come in if you want to. He said. And sleep if you can. House all messy. Ma's been dead three years and dad's away. Nothing to eat but buckwheat flour and rusty bacon. I have plenty to eat. I answered, picking up a hamper. Just take that hamper, will you? You can come in if you ever mind too? He said. But you got to carry your own stuff. He did not speak gruffly or rudely but appeared mildly stating an inoffensive fact. All right, I said, picking up the other hamper. Lead the way. The yard in front of the house was dark under a dozen or more immense elanthus trees, below them many smaller trees had grown up, and beneath these a dank underwood of tall rank suckers out of the deep shaggy mated grass. What had once been apparently a carriage drive left a narrow curved track disused in grass grown leading to the house. Even here were some shoots of the elanthus and the air was unpleasant with the wildest smell of the roots and suckers and the insistent odor of the flowers. The house was of gray stone with green shutters faded almost as gray as the stone. Along its front was a veranda not much raised from the ground and with no bellestrade or railing. On it were several hickory splint rockers. There were eight shuttered windows towards the port and midway of them a wide open door with small violet panes on either side of it and a fan light above. Open the door, I said to the boy. Open it yourself. He replied not unpleasantly nor disagreeably, but in such a tone that one could not but take the suggestion as a matter of course. I put down the two hampers and tried the door. It was lashed but not locked and opened with a rusty grind of its hinges on which it sagged crazily, scraping on the floor as it turned. The passage smelled moldy and damp. There were several doors on either side. The boy pointed to the first on the right. You can have that room. He said. I opened the door, worked with the dusk, the interlacing trees outside, the Piazza roof and the closed shutters I could make out little. Better get a lamp. I said to the boy. Nary lamp. He declared cheerfully. Nary candle. Mostly I get a bed before dark. I returned to the remains of my conveyance. All four of my lamps were merely scrap metal and a splintered glass. My lantern was mashed flat. I always, however, carried candles in my valleys. This I found is split and crushed, but is still holding together. I carried it to the porch, opened it and took out three candles. Entering the room where I found the boy standing just as where I had left him, I lit the candle. The walls were white-washed, the floor bare. There was a mild-use chili smell, but the bed looked freshly made up and clean, although it felt clammy. In the few drops of its own grease, I stuck the candle on the corner of a mean, drickety little bureau. There was nothing else in the room saved to rush-bottomed chairs and a small table. I went out on the porch, brought in my valleys and put it on the bed. I raised the sash of each window and pushed open the shutter. Then I asked the boy, who had not moved or spoken to show me the way to the kitchen. He led me straight through the hail to the back of the house. The kitchen was large and had no furniture, save some pine chairs, a pine bench and a pine table. I stuck two candles on the opposite corners of the table. There was no stove or range in the kitchen, only a big hearth, the ashes in which smelt and looked a month old. The wood in the wood shed was dry enough, but even it had a ciliary, stale smell. The axe and hatchet were both rusty and dull, but usable, and I quickly made a big fire. To my amazement for the mid-June evening was hot and still, the boy, a dry smile on his ugly face, almost leaned over the flame, hands and arms spread out and fairly roasted himself. Are you cold? I inquired. I am always cold. He replied, hugging the fire closer than ever, till I thought he must scorch. I left him toasting himself while I went in search of water. I discovered the pump which was in working order and not dry on the valves, but I had a furious struggle to fill the two leaky pails I had found. When I had put water to boil, I fetched my hampers from the porch. I brushed the table and set out my meal, cold fowl, cold ham, white and brown bread, olives, jam and cake. When the can of soup was hot and the coffee made, I drew up two chairs to the table and invited the boy to join me. I ain't hungry. He said, I've had supper. He was a new sort of a boy to me. All the boys I knew were hearty eaters and always ready. I had felt hungry myself, but somehow, when I came to eat, I had little appetite and hardly relished the food. I soon made an end of my meal, covered the fire, blew out the candles and returned to the porch, where I dropped into one of the hickory rockers to smoke. The boy followed me silently and seated himself on the porch floor, leaning against a pillar, his feet on the grass outside. What do you do? I asked. When your father is away? Just loaf around? He said. Just fool around. How far off are your nearest neighbors? I asked. Don't know neighbors never come here? He stated. Say, they are afraid of the ghosts. I was not at all startled. The place had all those aspects which led to a house being called haunted. I was struck by his odd metro-fact way of speaking. It was as if he had said they were afraid of a cross-dog. Do you ever see any ghosts around here? I continued. Never see him? He answered, as if I had mentioned tramps or partridges. Never hear him? Sort of feel him around sometimes. Are you afraid of them? I asked. Nope. He declared. I ain't scared of ghosts. I am scared of nightmares. Ever have nightmares? Very seldom, I replied. I do. He returned. Always have the same nightmare. Big sow, big as its tear, trying to eat me up. Wake up so scared I could run to never, nowhere to run to. Go to sleep and have it again. Wake up worse scared than ever. Dad says it's buckwheat cakes in summer. You must have teased the sow some time. I said. Yep. He answered. Teased a big sow once, holding up one of her pigs by the hind leg. Teased her too long. Telling the pen and got bit up some. Wish I hadn't teased her. Have that nightmare three times a week sometimes. Worse than being burned out. Worse than ghosts. Say, I sort of feel ghosts around now. He was not trying to frighten me. He was as simply stating an opinion as if he had spoken of bats or mosquitoes. I made no reply and found myself listening involuntarily. My pipe went out. I did not really want another but felt disclined for bed as yet and was comfortable where I was while the smell of the Elanthus blossoms was very disagreeable. I filled my pipe again, lit it and then as I puffed, somehow dosed off for a moment. I awoke with the sensation of some light fabric trailed across my face. The boy's position was unchanged. Did you do that? I asked sharply. Ain't done anything. He rejoiced. What was it? It was like a piece of mosquito netting brushed over my face. That ain't netting. He asserted. That's a whale. That's one of the ghosts. Some blow on you. Some touch you with their long cold fingers. That one with the whale, she drags across your face. Well, mostly I think it's ma. He spoke with the unassailable conviction of the child in VR7. I found no words to reply and rose to go to bed. Good night, I said. Good night, he echoed. I'll sit out here aspell yet. I lit a match, found the candle I had stuck on the corner of the shabby little bureau and undressed. The bed had a comfortable husk mattress and I was soon asleep. I had the sensation of having slept some time when I had a nightmare. The very nightmare the boy had described. A huge soul, big as a stray horse, was reared up with her forelegs over the footboard of the bed, trying to scramble over to me. She grunted and puffed and I felt I was the food she craved. I knew in the dream that it was only a dream and a strove to wake up. Then the gigantic dream beast floundered over the footboard, fell across my shins and I awoke. I was in darkness as absolute as if I were sealed in a jet vault. Yet the shutter of the nightmare instantly subsided, my nerves quieted. I realized where I was and felt not the least panic. I turned over and was asleep again almost at once. Then I had a real nightmare, not recognizable as a dream, but a palingly real and a terrible agony of reasonless horror. There was a thing in the room, not a soul, nor any other nameable creature but a thing. It was as big as an elephant, filled the room to the ceiling with shape like a wild boar, seated on its haunches with its forelegs brazed stiffly in front of it. It had a hot, slobbering red mouth full of big tusks and its jaws worked hungrily. It shuffled and hunched itself forward inch by inch till its vast forelegs straddled the bed. The bed crushed up like wet blotting paper and I felt the weight of the thing on my feet, on my legs, on my body, on my chest. It was hungry and I was what it was hungry for and it meant to begin on my face. Its dripping mouth was nearer and nearer. Then the dream helplessness that made me unable to call or move suddenly gave way and I yelled and awoke. This time my tenor was positive and not to be shaken off. It was nearer dawn I could describe dimly from the cracked dirty window panes. I got up, lit the stump of my candle and two fresh ones, dressed hastily, strapped my ruined valleys and put it on the porch against the wall near the door. Then I called the boy. I realized quite suddenly that I had not told him my name or asked his. I shouted, Hello, a few times, but one no answer. I had had enough of their house. I was still permitted with the panic of the nightmare. I resisted from shouting, made no search, but with two candles went out to the kitchen. I took a swallow of cold coffee and munched a biscuit as I hustled my belongings into my hampers. Then, leaving a silver dollar on the bill, I carried the hampers out on the porch and dumped them by my wellies. It was now light enough to see the walk and I went out to the road. Already the night dew had rusted much of the wreck, making it look more hopeless than before. It was, however, entirely undisturbed. There was not so much as a wheel track or a hoof print on the road. The tall white stone, uncertainty about which had caused my disaster, stood like a sentinel opposite where I had upset. I set out to find that blacksmith shop before I had gone far the sun rose clear from the horizon and was almost at once scorching. As I footed it along, I grew very much heated and it seemed more like 10 miles than 6 before I reached the first house. It was a new frame house, neatly painted and closed to the road with a whitewashed fence along its garden front. I was about to open the gate when a big black dog with a curly tail bounded out of the bushes. He did not bark but he stood inside the gate wagging his tail and regarding me with a friendly eye. Yet I hesitated with my hand on the latch and considered. The dog might not be as friendly as he looked and the sight of him made me realize that except for the boy I had seen no creature about the house where I had spent the night, no dog or cat, not even a toad or a bird. While I was germinating upon this, a man came from behind the house. Will your dog bite? I asked. No, he answered. He don't bite, come in. I told him I had had an accident to my automobile and asked if he could drive me to the blacksmith shop and back to my wreckage. Certainly, he answered. Happy to help you, I'll hitch up four shortly. Where'd you smash? In front of the grey house about six miles back, I answered. That big stone-built house he queried. The same, I assented. Did you go a past here? He inquired astonished. I didn't hear you. No, I said. I came from the other direction. Why? he meditated. You must've smashed about sun up. Did you come over them mountains in the dark? No, I replied. I came over them yesterday evening. I smashed up about sunset. Sun down, he exclaimed. Where in thunder you have been all night? I slept in the house where I broke down. In that big stone-built house in the trees? He demanded. Yes, I agreed. Why? he answered excitedly. That their house is haunted. They say if you have to drive past it after dark, you can't tell which side of the road the big white stone is on. I couldn't tell even before sunset. There, he exclaimed. Look at that now. And you slept in that house? Did you sleep? Honest. I slept very well. I said. Except for a nightmare, I slept all night. Well, he commented. I wouldn't go in that their house for a farm, nor sleep in it for my salvation. And you slept? How in thunder did you get in? The boy took me in. I said. What sort of boy? He inquired. His eyes fixed on me with a queer, country-fied look of absorbed interest. A thick-set, freckled boy with a hair-lip. I said. Talk like his mouth was full of mush? He demanded. Yes, bad case of cleft pellet. He exclaimed. I never did believe in ghosts, and I never did have belief that house was haunted, but I know it now. And you slept? I didn't see any ghosts. I retorted irritably. You seen a ghost for sure? He rejoined solemnly. That their hair-lip boy is being dead six months. And off the house of the nightmare, recorded by Zernaz. Seems sixty and married. But these effects are due to my condition and sufferings, for I am a bachelor and only forty-one. It will be hard for you to believe that I, who am now but a shadow, was a hail-hardy man two short years ago. A man of iron, a very athlete. Yet such is the simple truth. But stranger still, then, this fact is the way in which I lost my health. I lost it through helping to take care of a box of guns on a two-hundred-mile railway journey one winter's night. It is the actual truth, and I will tell you about it. I belong in Cleveland, Ohio. One winter's night two years ago I reached home just after dark in a driving snowstorm, and the first thing I heard when I entered the house was that my dearest boyhood friend and schoolmate, John B. Hackett, had died the day before, and that his last utterance had been a desire that I would take his remains home to his poor old father and mother in Wisconsin. I was greatly shocked and grieved, but there was no time to waste in emotions. I must start at once. I took the card marked Deacon Levi Hackett, Bethlehem, Wisconsin, and herried off through the whistling storm to the railway station. Arrived there, I found the long white pine box which had been described to me. I fastened the card to it with some tax, saw it put safely aboard an express car, and then ran into the eating room to provide myself with a sandwich and some cigars. When I returned presently, there was my coffin box back again, apparently, and a young fellow examining around it with a card in his hands and some tax and a hammer. I was astonished and puzzled. He began to nail on his card, and I rushed out to the express car in a good deal of state of mind to ask for an explanation. But no, there was my box all right in the express car. It hadn't been disturbed. The fact is that without my suspecting it a prodigious mistake had been made. I was carrying off a box of guns which that young fellow had come to the station to ship to a rifle company in Peoria, Illinois, and he had got my corpse. Just then the conductor sung out, all aboard, and I jumped into the express car and got a comfortable seat on a bale of buckets. The expressman was there, hard at work, a plain man of fifty, with a simple, honest, good-natured face and a breezy practical hardiness in his general style. As the train moved off, a stranger skipped into the car and set a package of peculiarly mature and capable Limburger cheese on one end of my coffin box. I mean my box of guns. That is to say, I know now that it was Limburger cheese, but at the time I never had heard of the article in my life, and of course was wholly ignorant of its character. Well, we sped through the wild night. The bitter storm raged on. A cheerless misery stole over me. My heart went down, down, down. The old expressman made a brisk remark or two about the tempest and the arctic weather, slammed his sliding doors too and bolted them, closed his window down tight, and then went bustling around here and there and yonder, setting things to rights, and all the time contentedly humming sweet by and by, in a low tone and flatting a good deal. Presently I began to detect a most evil and searching odor stealing about on the frozen air. This depressed my spirit still more, because, of course, I attributed it to my poor departed friend. There was something infinitely saddening about his calling himself to my remembrance in this dumb, pathetic way, so it was hard to keep the tears back. Moreover it distressed me on account of the old gentleman who I was afraid might notice it. However he went humming tranquilly on and gave no sign, and for this I was grateful. Grateful, yes, but still uneasy, and soon I began to feel more and more uneasy every minute for every minute that went by that odor thickened up the more, and got to be more and more gamey and hard to stand. Presently, having got things arranged to his satisfaction, the expressman got some wood and made up a tremendous fire in his stove. This distressed me more than I can tell, for I could not but feel that it was a mistake. I was sure that the effect would be deleterious upon my poor departed friend. Thompson, the expressman's name was Thompson as I found out in the course of the night, now went poking around his car, stopping up whatever stray cracks he could find, remarking that it didn't make any difference what kind of a night it was outside. He calculated to make us comfortable anyway. I said nothing, but I believed he was not choosing the right way. Meantime he was humming to himself, just as before, and meantime too the stove was getting hotter and hotter and the place closer and closer. I felt myself growing pale and qualmish, but grieved in silence and said nothing. Soon I noticed that the sweet buy-and-buy was gradually fading out. Next it ceased altogether and there was an ominous stillness. After a few moments Thompson said, Phew! I reckon it ain't no cinnamon I've loaded up this year's stove with. He gasped once or twice, then moved toward the cuff gun-box, stood over that Limburger cheese part of a moment, then came back and sat down near me, looking a good deal impressed. After a contemplative pause he said, indicating the box with a gesture. Friendly yarn? Yes, I said with a sigh. He's pretty ripe, ain't he? Nothing further was said for perhaps a couple of minutes, each being busy with his own thoughts. Then Thompson said in a low and odd voice, Sometimes it's uncertain whether they're really gone or not. Seen gone. You know, body warm, joints limber and so, although you think they're gone you don't really know. I've had cases in my car, it's perfectly awful because you don't know what minute they'll rise up and look at you. Then after a pause and slightly lifting his elbow toward the box. But he ain't in no trance. No, sir, I go to bail for him. We sat some time in meditative silence, listening to the wind and the roar of the train. Then Thompson said, with a good deal of feeling, Well, well, we've all got to go. They ain't no getting around it. Man that is born of woman is a few days and far between, as scripture says. Yes, you can look at it any way you want to. It's awful solemn and curious they ain't nobody can get around it. All's got to go. Just everybody, as you might say. One day you're party and strong. Here he scrambled to his feet and broke a pain and stretched his nose out at a moment or two. Then sat down again while I struggled up and thrust my nose out at the same place. And this we kept on doing every now and then. And the next day he's cut down like grass and the places which note him then knows him no more forever, as scripture says. Yes, indeedy, it's awful solemn and curious. But we've all got to go, one time or another. They ain't no getting around it. There was another long pause. Then what did he die of? I said I didn't know. How long has he been dead? It seemed judicious to enlarge the facts to fit the probabilities. So I said, Two or three days. But it did no good for Thompson received it with an injured look which plainly said, Two or three years, you mean. Then he went right along placidly ignoring my statement and gave his views at considerable length upon the unwisdom of putting off burials too long. Then he lounged off toward the box, stood a moment, then came back on a sharp trot and visited the broken pain, observing this would have been a dumb sight better all around if they'd started him a long last summer. Thompson sat down and buried his face in his red silk handkerchief and began to slowly sway and rock his body like one who was doing his best to endure the almost unendurable. By this time the fragrance, if you may call it a fragrance, was just about suffocating, as near as you can come at it. Thompson's face was turning gray. I knew mine hadn't any color left in it. By and by Thompson rested his forehead on his left hand with his elbow on his knee and sort of waved his red handkerchief toward the box with his other hand and said, I've carried many one of them. Some of them considered overdue too. But Lordy, he just lays over them all and does it easy, Cap. They was heliotrope to him. This recognition of my poor friend gratified me in spite of the sad circumstances, because it had so much the sound of a compliment. Pretty soon it was plain that something had got to be done. I suggested cigars. Thompson thought it was a good idea. He said, likely, it'll modify him some. We puffed gingerly along for a while and tried hard to imagine that things were improved. But it wasn't any use. Before very long and without any consultation both cigars were dropped quietly from our nervous fingers at the same moment. Thompson said with a sigh, No, Cap, it don't modify him worth a cent. Fact is it makes him worse because it appears to stir up his ambition. What do you reckon we better do now? I was not able to suggest anything. Indeed, I had to be swallowing and swallowing all the time and did not like to trust myself to speak. Thompson fell too wandering in a desultery and low-spirited way about the miserable experiences of this night. And he got to referring to my poor friend by various titles. Sometimes military ones, sometimes civil ones. And I noticed that as fast as my poor friend's effectiveness grew, Thompson promoted him accordingly, gave him a bigger title. Finally he said, I've got an idea. Suppose and we buckled down to it and give the kernel a bit of shove toward the other end of the car. About ten foot, say. He wouldn't have so much influence then, don't you reckon? I said it was a good scheme, so we took in a good fresh breath at the broken pain, calculating to hold it till we got through. Then we went there and bent over that deadly cheese and took a grip on the box. Thompson nodded. Already? And then we threw ourselves forward with all our might, but Thompson slipped and slumped down with his nose on the cheese and his breath got loose. He gagged and gasped and floundered up and made a break for the door, pawing the air and saying hoarsely, Don't hinder me. Give me the road. I'm a dyin. Give me the road. Out on the cold platform I sat down and held his head a while, and he revived. Presently he said, Do you reckon we started the general any? I said no. We hadn't budged him. Well then, that idea is up the flume. We got to think up something else. He's suited where he is, I reckon, and if that's the way he feels about it and has made up his mind that he don't wish to be disturbed, you bet he's going to have his own way in the business. Yes, better leave him right where he is, long as he wants it so, because he holds all the trumps, don't you know? And so it stands to reason that the man that lays out to alter his plans for him is going to get left. But we couldn't stay out there in that mad storm. We should have frozen to death. So we went in again and shut the door and began to suffer once more and take turns at the break in the window. By and by, as we were starting away from a station where we had stopped a moment, Thompson pranced in cheerfully and exclaimed, We're all right now. I reckon we've got the Commodore this time. I judge I've got the stuff here that I'll take the tuck out of him. It was carbolic acid. He had a car boy of it. He sprinkled it all around, everywhere. In fact, he drenched everything with it, rifle box, cheese, and all. Then we sat down feeling pretty hopeful. But it wasn't for long. You see, the two perfumes began to mix, and then, well, pretty soon we made a break for the door, and out there, Thompson swabbed his face with his bandana and said in a kind of disheartened way, It ain't no use. We can't buck again him. He just utilizes everything we put up to modify him with and gives it his own flavor and plays it back on us. Why, Cap, don't you know, it's as much as a hundred times worse in there now than it was when he first got a going. I never did see one of them warm up to his work so, and take such a doom nation interest in it. No, sir, I never did as long as I've been on the road and I've carried a many one of them as I was telling you. We went in again, after we were frozen pretty stiff. But, my, we couldn't stay in now. So we just waltzed back and forth, freezing and thawing and stifling by turns. In about an hour we stopped at another station, and as we left it, Thompson came in with a bag and said, Cap, I'm gonna chance him one more time. Just this once, and if we don't fetch him this time, the thing for us to do is to just throw up the sponge and withdraw from the canvas. That's the way I put it up. He had brought a lot of chicken feathers and dried apples and leek tobacco and rags and old shoes and sulfur and asafetida and one thing or another, and he piled them on a breath of sheet iron in the middle of the floor and set fire to them. When they got well started I couldn't see myself how even the corpse could stand it. All that went before was just simple poetry to that smell. But mind you, the original smell stood up out of it just as sublime as ever. Fact is, these other smells just seemed to give it a better hold, and my, how rich it was. I didn't make these reflections there. There wasn't time. Made them on the platform. And breaking for the platform, Thompson got suffocated and fell, and before I got him dragged out, which I did by the collar, I was mighty near gone myself. When we revived, Thompson said dejectedly, We got to stay out here, Cap. We got to do it. They ain't no other way. The governor wants to travel alone and he's fixed so he can outvote us. And presently he added, And don't you know we're poisoned. It's our last trip. You can make up your mind to it. Typhoid fever is what's going to come of this. I feel it a common right now. Yes, sir, we're elected just as sure as you're born. We were taken from the platform an hour later, frozen and insensible at the next station, and I went straight off into a virulent fever and never knew anything again for three weeks. I found out then that I had spent that awful night with a harmless box of rifles and a lot of innocent cheese. But the news was too late to save me. Imagination had done its work, and my health was permanently shattered. Neither Bermuda nor any other land can ever bring it back to me. This is my last trip. I am on my way home to die. End of The Invalid Story by Mark Twain. Lazarus by Leonid Andreev. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Greg Marguerite. Lazarus by Leonid Andreev. One. When Lazarus rose from the grave after three days and nights in the mysterious thralldom of death and returned alive to his home, it was a long time before anyone noticed the evil peculiarities in him that were later to make his very name terrible. His friends and relatives were jubilant that he had come back to life. They surrounded him with tenderness. They were lavish of their eager attentions, spending the greatest care upon his food and drink and the new garments they made for him. They clad him gorgeously in the glowing colors of hope and laughter, and when arrayed like a bridegroom he sat at table with them, ate again and drank again, they wept fondly and summoned the neighbors to look upon the man miraculously raised from the dead. The neighbors came and were moved with joy. Strangers arrived from distant cities and villages to worship the miracle. They burst into stormy exclamations and buzzed around the house of Mary and Martha like so many bees. That which was new in Lazarus' face and gestures they explained naturally, as the traces of his severe illness and the shock he had passed through. It was evident that the disintegration of the body had been halted by a miraculous power, but that the restoration had not been complete. That death had left upon his face and body the effect of an artist's unfinished sketch seen through a thin glass. On his temples, under his eyes, and in the hollow of his cheeks lay a thick, earthy blue. His fingers were blue, too, and under his nails, which had grown long in the grave, the blue had turned livid. Here and there, on his lips and body, the skin blistered and the grave had burst open and left reddish glistening cracks as if covered with a thin glassy slime. And he had grown exceedingly stout. His body was horribly bloated and suggested the fetid damp smell of putrification. But the cadaverous heavy odor that clung to his burial garments and, as it seemed to his very body, soon wore off. And after some time the blue of his hands and face softened and the reddish cracks of his skin smoothed out, though they never disappeared completely. Such was the aspect of Lazarus in his second life. It looked natural only to those who had seen him buried. Not merely Lazarus's face, but his very character it seemed had changed, though it astonished no one and did not attract the attention it deserved. Before his death Lazarus had been cheerful and careless, a lover of laughter and harmless jest. It was because of his good humor, pleasant and equable, his freedom from meanness and gloom that he had been so beloved by the master. Now he was grave and silent. Neither he himself gested nor did he laugh at the jests of others. And the words he spoke occasionally were simple, ordinary, and necessary words. Words as much devoid of sense and depth as are the sounds with which an animal expresses pain and pleasure, thirst and hunger. Such words a man may speak all his life and no one would ever know the sorrows and joys that dwelt within him. Thus it was that Lazarus sat at the festive table among his friends and relatives, his face the face of a corpse over which for three days death had reigned in darkness, his garments gorgeous and festive, glittering with gold, bloody red and purple, his mane heavy and silent. He was horribly changed and strange, but as yet undiscovered. In high waves, now mild, now stormy, the festivities went on around him. Warm glances of love caressed his face, still cold with the touch of the grave, and a friend's warm hand patted his bluish heavy hand. And the music played joyous tunes mingled of the sounds of the tympanium, the pipe, the zither and the dulcimer. It was as if bees were humming, locusts buzzing, and birds singing over the happy home of Mary and Martha. 2 Someone recklessly lifted the veil. By one breath of an uttered word he destroyed the serene charm and uncovered the truth in its ugly nakedness. No thought was clearly defined in his mind when his lips smilingly asked, Why do you not tell us, Lazarus? What was there? And all became silent, struck with the question. Only now it seemed to have occurred to them that for three days Lazarus had been dead and they looked with curiosity awaiting an answer, but Lazarus remained silent. 3 You will not tell us? wondered the inquirer. Is it so terrible there? Again his thought lagged behind his words. Had it proceeded them he would not have asked the question, for at the very moment he uttered it his heart sank with a dread fear. All grew restless. They awaited the words of Lazarus anxiously, but he was silent, cold, and severe, and his eyes were cast down. And now, as if for the first time they perceived the horrible bluishness of his face and the loathsome corpulence of his body. On the table as if forgotten by Lazarus lay his livid blue hand, and all eyes were riveted upon it as though expecting the desired answer from that hand. The musicians still played. Then silence fell upon them, too, and the gay sounds died down as scattered coals are extinguished by water. The pipe became mute, and the ringing timpanium and the murmuring dulcimer, and as though a chord were broken as though a song itself were dying, the zither echoed a trembling broken sound. Then all was quiet. 4 You will not? repeated the inquirer, unable to restrain his babbling tongue. Silence reigned, and the livid blue hand lay motionless. It moved slightly and the company sighed with relief and raised their eyes. Lazarus, risen from the dead, was looking straight at them, embracing all with one glance, heavy and terrible. This was on the third day after Lazarus had arisen from the grave. Since then many had felt that his gaze was the gaze of destruction, but neither those who had been forever crushed by it, nor those who in the prime of life, mysterious even as death, had found the will to resist his glance could ever explain the terror that lay immovable in the depths of his black pupils. He looked quiet and simple. One felt that he had no intention to hide anything, but also no intention to tell anything. His look was cold, as of one who is entirely indifferent to all that is alive, and many careless people who pressed around him and did not notice later learned with wonder and fear the name of this stout, quiet man who brushed against them with his sumptuous gaudy garments. The sun did not stop shining when he looked. Neither did the fountains cease playing, and the eastern sky remained cloudless and blue as always. But the man who fell under his inscrutable gaze could no longer feel the sun, nor hear the fountain, nor recognize his native sky. Sometimes he would cry bitterly, sometimes tear his hair in despair and madly call for help. But generally it happened that the men thus stricken by the gaze of Lazarus began to fade away, listlessly and quietly, and pass into a slow death lasting many long years. They died in the presence of everybody, colorless, haggard, and gloomy, like trees withering on rocky ground. Those who screamed in madness sometimes came back to life, but the others never. So, you will not tell us, Lazarus, what you saw there? The inquirer repeated for the third time. But now his voice was dull, and a dead gray weariness looked stupidly out from the eyes. The faces of all present were also covered by the same dead gray weariness like a mist. The guests stared at one another stupidly, not knowing why they had come together or why they sat around this rich table. They stopped talking and vaguely felt it was time to leave, but they could not overcome the lassitude that spread through their muscles. So they continued to sit there, each one isolated, like little dim lights scattered in the darkness of night. The musicians were paid to play, and they again took up the instruments and again played gay or mournful airs. But it was music made to order, always the same tunes, and the guests listened wonderingly. Why was this music necessary, they thought? Why was it necessary, and what good did it do for people to pull at strings and blow their cheeks into thin pipes and produce varied and strange sounding noises? How badly they play, said someone. The musicians were insulted and left. Then the guests departed one by one, for it was nearing night, and when the quiet darkness enveloped them and it became easier to breathe, the image of Lazarus suddenly arose before each one in stern splendor. There he stood, with the blue face of a corpse and the raiment of a bridegroom, sumptuous and resplendent, in his eyes that cold stare in the depths of which lurked the horrible. They stood still as if turned into stone. The darkness surrounded them, and in the midst of this darkness flamed up the horrible apparition, the supernatural vision of one who for three days had lain under the measureless power of death. Three days he had been dead. Thrice had the sun risen and set, and he had lain dead. The children had played, the water had murmured as it streamed over the rocks. The hot dust had clouded the highway, and he had been dead. And now he was among men again. Touched them, looked at them, looked at them. And through the black rings of his pupils, as through dark glasses, the unfathomable there gazed upon humanity. Three. No one took care of Lazarus, and no friends or kindred remained with him. Only the great desert enfolding the holy city came close to the threshold of his abode. It entered his home and lay down on his couch like a spouse and put out all the fires. No one cared for Lazarus. One after the other went away, even his sisters Mary and Martha. For a long while Martha did not want to leave him, for she knew not who would nurse him or take care of him, and she cried and prayed. But one night when the wind was roaming about the desert and the rustling cypress trees were blending over the roof, she dressed herself quietly and quietly went away. Lazarus probably heard how the door was slammed. It had not shut properly, and the wind kept knocking it continually against the post. But he did not rise. He did not go out, did not try to find out the reason. And the whole night until the morning the cypress trees hissed over his head and the door swung to and fro, allowing the cold, greedily prowling desert to enter his dwelling. Everybody shunned him as though he were a leper. They wanted to put a bell on his neck to avoid meeting him. But someone turning pale remarked it would be terrible if at night under the windows one should happen to hear Lazarus' bell. And all grew pale and assented. Since he did nothing for himself he would probably have starved had not his neighbors in trepidation saved some food for him. Children brought it to him. They did not fear him. Neither did they laugh at him in the innocent cruelty in which children often laugh at unfortunates. They were indifferent to him, and Lazarus showed the same indifference to them. He showed no desire to thank them for their services. He did not try to pat the dark hands and look into the simple shining little eyes. Abandoned to the ravages of time and the desert his house was falling to ruins, and his hungry bleeding goats had long been scattered among his neighbors. His wedding garments had grown old. He wore them without changing them as he had donned them on that happy day when the musicians played. He did not see the difference between old and new, between torn and whole. The brilliant colors were burnt and faded. The vicious dogs of the city and the sharp thorns of the desert had rent the fine clothes to shreds. During the day when the sun beat down mercilessly upon all living things and even the scorpions hid under the stones convulsed with a mad desire to sting, he sat motionless in the burning rays, lifting high his blue face and shaggy wild beard. While yet the people were unafraid to speak to him, someone had asked him, poor Lazarus, do you find it pleasant to sit so and look at the sun? And he answered, Yes, it is pleasant. The thought suggested itself to people that the cold of the three days in the grave had been so intense, its darkness so deep, that there was not in all the earth enough heat or light to warm Lazarus and lightened the gloom of his eyes, and inquirers turned away with a sigh. And when the setting sun, flat and purple red descended to earth, Lazarus went into the desert and walked straight toward it, as though intending to reach it. Always he walked directly toward the sun, and those who tried to follow him and find out what he did at night in the desert had indelibly imprinted upon their mind's vision, the black silhouette of a tall, stout man against the red background of an immense disk. The horrors of the night drove them away, and so they never found out what Lazarus did in the desert. But the image of the black form against the red was burned forever into their brains. Like an animal with a cinder in its eye which furiously rubs its muzzle against its paws, they foolishly rubbed their eyes. But the impression left by Lazarus was ineffacable, forgotten only in death. There were people living far away who never saw Lazarus and only heard of him, with an audacious curiosity which is stronger than fear and feeds on fear. With a secret sneer in their hearts, some of them came to him one day as he basked in the sun and entered into conversation with him. At that time his appearance had changed for the better and was not so frightful. At first the visitors snapped their fingers and thought disapprovingly of the foolish inhabitants of the Holy City. But when the short talk came to an end and they went home, their expression was such that the inhabitants of the Holy City at once knew their errand and said, Here go, some more madmen at whom Lazarus has looked. The speakers raised their hands in silent pity. Other visitors came, among them brave warriors in clinking armor who knew not fear and happy youths who made merry with laughter and song. Busy merchants jingling their coins ran in for a while and proud attendants at the temple placed their staffs at Lazarus's door. But no one returned the same as he came. A frightful shadow fell upon their souls and gave a new appearance to the old familiar world. Those who felt any desire to speak after they had been stricken by the gaze of Lazarus described the change that had come over them somewhat like this. All objects seen by the eye and palpable to the hand became empty, light, and transparent as though they were light shadows in the darkness, and this darkness enveloped the whole universe. It was dispelled neither by the sun nor by the moon nor by the stars, but embraced the earth like a mother and clothed it in a boundless black veil. Into all bodies it penetrated, even into iron and stone and the particles of the body lost their unity and became lonely. Even to the heart of the particles it penetrated and the particles of the particles became lonely. The vast emptiness which surrounds the universe was not filled with things seen with sun or moon or stars. It stretched boundless, penetrating everywhere, disuniting everything, body from body, particle from particle. In emptiness the trees spread their roots themselves empty. In emptiness rose phantom temples, palaces and houses, all empty, and in the emptiness moved restless man, himself empty and light, like a shadow. There was no more a sense of time. The beginning of all things and their end merged into one. In the very moment when a building was being erected and one could hear the builders striking with their hammers, one seemed already to see its ruins and then emptiness where the ruins were. A man was just born and funeral candles were already lighted at his head, and then they were extinguished and soon there was emptiness where before had been the man and the candles. And surrounded by darkness and empty waste, man trembled hopelessly before the dread of the infinite. So spoke those who had a desire to speak, but much more could probably have been told by those who did not want to talk and who died in silence. Four. At that time there lived in Rome a celebrated sculptor by the name of Aurelius. Out of clay, marble, and prawns he created forms of gods and men of such beauty that this beauty was proclaimed immortal. But he himself was not satisfied and said there was a supreme beauty that he had never succeeded in expressing in marble or prawns. I have not yet gathered the radiance of the moon, he said. I have not yet caught the glare of the sun. There is no soul in my marble. There is no life in my beautiful prawns. And when by moonlight he would slowly wander along the roads, crossing the black shadows of the cypress trees, his white tunic flashing in the moonlight, those he met used to laugh good-naturedly and say, Is it moonlight that you are gathering Aurelius? Why did you not bring some baskets along? And he, too, would laugh and point to his eyes and say, Here are the baskets in which I gather the light of the moon and the radiance of the sun. And that was the truth. In his eyes shone moon and sun, but he could not transmit the radiance to marble. Therein lay the greatest tragedy of his life. He was a descendant of an ancient race of patricians, had a good wife and children, and except in this one respect, lacked nothing. When the dark rumor about Lazarus reached him, he consulted his wife and friends and decided to make the long voyage to Judea in order that he might look upon the man miraculously raised from the dead. He felt lonely in those days and hoped on the way to renew his jaded energies. What they had told him about Lazarus did not frighten him. He had meditated much upon death. He did not like it, nor did he like those who tried to harmonize it with life. On this side, beautiful life. On the other, mysterious death he reasoned. And no better lot could befall a man than to live, to enjoy life and the beauty of living. And he already had conceived a desire to convince Lazarus of the truth of this view, and to return his soul to life even as his body had been returned. This task did not appear impossible for the reports about Lazarus, fearsome and strange as they were did not tell the whole truth about him, but only carried a vague warning against something awful. Lazarus was getting up from a stone to follow in the path of the setting sun on the evening when the rich Roman, accompanied by an armed slave, approached him, and in a ringing voice called to him, Lazarus, Lazarus saw a proud and beautiful face made radiant by fame and white garments and precious jewels shining in the sunlight. The ruddy rays of the sun lent to the head and face a likeness to dimly shining bronze. That was what Lazarus saw. He sank back to his seat obediently and wearily lowered his eyes. It is true you are not beautiful, my poor Lazarus, said the Roman quietly, playing with a gold chain. You are even frightful, my poor friend, and death was not lazy the day when you so carelessly fell into its arms. But you are as fat as a barrel and fat people are not bad, as the great Caesar said. I do not understand why people are so afraid of you. You will permit me to stay with you overnight? It is already late and I have no abode. Nobody had ever asked Lazarus to be allowed to pass the night with him. I have no bed, said he. I am somewhat of a warrior and can sleep sitting, replied the Roman. We shall make a light. I have no light. Then we will converse in the darkness, like two friends. I suppose you have some wine. I have no wine. The Roman laughed. Now I understand why you are so gloomy and why you do not like your second life. No wine? Well, we shall do without. You know there are words that go to one's head even as fullerian wine. With a motion of his head he dismissed the slave and they were alone. And again the sculptor spoke, but it seemed as though the sinking sun had penetrated into his words. They faded pale and empty as if trembling on weak feet as if slipping and falling drunk with the wine of anguish and despair. And black chasms appeared between the two men, like remote hints of vast emptiness and vast darkness. Now I am your guest and you will not ill-treat me, Lazarus, said the Roman. Hospitality is binding even upon those who have been three days dead. Three days I am told you were in the grave. It must have been cold there. And it is from there that you have brought this bad habit of doing without light and wine. I like light. It gets dark so quickly here. Your eyebrows and forehead have an interesting line, even as the ruins of castles covered with the ashes of an earthquake. But why in such strange ugly clothes? I have seen the bridegrooms of your country. They wear clothes like that. Such ridiculous clothes. Such awful garments. Are you a bridegroom? Already the sun had disappeared. A gigantic black shadow was approaching fast from the west as if prodigious bare feet were rustling over the sand and the chill breezes stolt up behind. In the darkness you seem even bigger, Lazarus, as though you had grown stouter in these few minutes. Do you feed on darkness per chance? And I would like a light. Just a small light. Just a small light. And I'm cold. The nights here are so barbarously cold. If it were not so dark I should say that you were looking at me, Lazarus. Yes, it seems you are looking. You are looking. You are looking at me. I feel it. Now you are smiling. The night had come and a heavy blackness filled the air. How good it will be when the sun rises again tomorrow. You know, I am a great sculptor. So my friends call me. I create. Yes, they say I create. But for that daylight is necessary. I give life to cold marble. I melt the ringing bronze in the fire in a bright hot fire. Why did you touch me with your hand? Come, said Lazarus. You are my guest. And they went into the house and the shadows of the long evening fell on the earth. The slave at last grew tired waiting for his master, and when the sun stood high he came to the house, and he saw directly under its burning rays Lazarus and his master sitting close together. They looked straight up and were silent. The slave wept and cried aloud, Master, what ails you, Master? The same day, Aurelius left for Rome. The whole way he was thoughtful and silent, attentively examining everything, the people, the ship, and the sea as though endeavouring to recall something. On the sea a great storm overtook them, and all the while Aurelius remained on deck and gazed eagerly at the approaching and falling waves. When he reached home his family were shocked at the terrible change in his demeanor, but he calmed them with the words, I have found it. In the dusty clothes in which he had worn during the entire journey and had not changed, he began his work, and the marble ringingly responded to the resounding blows of the hammer. Long and eagerly he worked, admitting no one. At last one morning he announced that the work was ready and gave instructions that all his friends and the severe critics and judges of art be called together. Then he donned gorgeous garments, shining with gold, glowing with the purple of the bison. Here is what I have created, he said thoughtfully. His friends looked and immediately the shadow of deep sorrow covered their faces. It was a thing monstrous, possessing none of the forms familiar to the eye, yet not devoid of a hint of some new unknown form. On a thin, torturous little branch, or rather an ugly likeness of one, lay crooked, strange, unsightly shapeless heaps of something turned outside in, or something turned inside out, wild fragments which seemed to be feebly trying to get away from themselves. And accidentally, under one of the wild projections, they noticed a wonderfully sculptured butterfly with transparent wings, trembling as though with a weak longing to fly. Why that wonderful butterfly really is? Timidly asked someone. I do not know, answered the sculptor. The truth had to be told, and one of his friends, the one who loved Aurelius the best, said, This is ugly, my poor friend. It must be destroyed. Give me the hammer. And with two blows he destroyed the monstrous mass, leaving only the wonderfully sculptured butterfly. After that Aurelius created nothing. He looked with absolute indifference at marble and at bronze and at his own divine creations in which dwelt immortal beauty. In the hope of breathing into him once more again the old flame of inspiration, with the idea of awakening his dead soul, his friends led him to see the beautiful creations of others. But he remained indifferent, and no smile warmed his closed lips. And only after they spoke to him much and long of beauty he would reply wearily, but all this is a lie. And in the daytime, when the sun was shining, he would go into his rich and beautifully laid out garden, and finding a place where there was no shadow would expose his bare head and his dull eyes to the glitter and burning heat of the sun. Red and white butterflies fluttering around, down into the marble cistern ran splashing water from the crooked mouth of a blissfully drunken sader. But he sat motionless, like a pale shadow of that other one who, in a far land at the very gates of the stony desert, also sat motionless under the fiery sun. Five. And it came about finally that Lazarus was summoned to Rome by the great Augustus. They dressed him in gorgeous garments as though it had been ordained that he was to remain a bridegroom to an unknown bride until the very day of his death. It was as if an old coffin, rotten and falling apart, were regilded over and over, and gay tassels were hung on it. And solemnly they conducted him in gala attire, as though in truth it were a bridal procession. The runners loudly sounding the trumpet that the way be made for the ambassadors of the emperor. But the roads along which he passed were deserted. His entire native land cursed the excruble name of Lazarus, the man miraculously brought to life, and the people scattered at the mere report of his horrible approach. The trumpeters blew lonely blasts and only the desert answered with a dying echo. Then they carried him across the sea on the saddest and most gorgeous ship that was ever mirrored in the azure waves of the Mediterranean. There were many people aboard, but the ship was silent and still as a coffin, and the water seemed to moan as it parted before the short curved prowl. Lazarus sat lonely, bearing his head to the sun, and listening in silence to the splashing of the waters. Further away the seamen and the ambassadors gathered like a crowd of distressed shadows. If a thunderstorm had happened to burst upon them at that time, or the wind had overwhelmed the red sails, the ship would probably have perished, for none of those who were on her had strength or desire enough to fight for life. With supreme effort some went to the side of the ship and eagerly gazed at the blue transparent abyss. Perhaps they imagined they saw a niad flashing a pink shoulder through the waves, or an insanely joyous and drunken centaur galloping by, splashing up the water with his hooves. But the sea was deserted and mute, and so was the watery abyss. Listlessly Lazarus set foot on the streets of the eternal city, as though all its riches, all the majesty of its gigantic edifices, all the luster and beauty and music of refined life were simply the echo of the wind in the desert, or the misty images of hot running sand. Chariots whirled by, the crowd of strong beautiful haughty men passed on, builders of the eternal city and proud partakers of its life. Songs rang out, fountains laughed, pearly laughter of women filled the air, while the drunkard philosophized and the sober ones smilingly listened. Horseshoes rattled on the pavement, and surrounded on all sides by glad sounds a fat heavy man moved through the center of the city like a cold spot of silence, sowing in his path grief, anger, and vague carking distress. Who dared to be sad in Rome? Indignantly demanded frowning citizens, and in two days the swift-tongued Rome knew of Lazarus, the man miraculously raised from the grave, and timidly evaded him. There were many brave men ready to try their strength, and at their senseless call Lazarus came obediently. The emperor was so engrossed with state affairs that he delayed receiving the visitor, and for seven days Lazarus moved among the people. A jovial drunkard met him with a smile on his red lips. Drink, Lazarus, drink! he cried. Would not Augustus laugh to see you drink? And naked, besotted women laughed and decked the blue hands of Lazarus with rose-leaves. But the drunkard looked into the eyes of Lazarus, and his joy ended forever. Thereafter he was always drunk. He drank no more, but was drunk all the time, shadowed by fearful dreams instead of the joyous reveries that wine gives. Fearful dreams became the food of his broken spirit. Fearful dreams held him day and night in the bits of monstrous fantasy, and death itself was no more fearful than the apparition of its fierce precursor. Lazarus came to a youth and his lass who loved each other and were beautiful in their love. Proudly and strongly holding in his arms his beloved one the youth said with gentle pity, Look at us, Lazarus, and rejoice with us. Is there anything stronger than love? And Lazarus looked at them. And their whole life they continued to love one another, but their love became mournful and gloomy, even as those cypress trees over the tombs that feed their roots on the putrescence of the grave, and strive in vain in the quiet evening hour to touch the sky with their pointed tops. Hurled by fathomless life-forces into each other's arms they mingled their kisses with tears, their joy with pain, and only succeeded in realizing the more vividly a sense of their slavery to the silent nothing. Forever united, forever parted, they flashed like sparks, and like sparks they went out in boundless darkness. Lazarus came to a proud sage and the sage said to him, I already know all the horrors that you may tell me, Lazarus, with what else can you terrify me? Only a few moments passed before the sage realized that the knowledge of the horrible is not the horrible, and that the sight of death is not death. And he felt that in the eyes of the infinite wisdom and folly are the same, for the infinite knows them not, and the boundaries between knowledge and ignorance, between truth and falsehood, between top and bottom, faded, and his shapeless thought was suspended in emptiness. Then he grasped his gray head in his hands and cried out insanely, I cannot think, I cannot think! Thus it was that under the cool gaze of Lazarus, the man miraculously raised from the dead, all that serves to affirm life, its sense and its joys perished. And people began to say it was dangerous to allow him to see the emperor, that it were better to kill him and bury him secretly and swear he had disappeared. Swords were sharpened and used devoted to the welfare of the people announced their readiness to become assassins, when Augustus upset the cruel plans by demanding that Lazarus appear before him. Even though Lazarus could not be kept away, it was felt that the heavy impression conveyed by his face might be somewhat softened. With that end in view, expert painters, barbers, and artists were secured who worked the whole night on Lazarus's head. His beard was trimmed and curled. The disagreeable and deadly bluishness of his hands and face was covered up with paint. His hands were whitened, his cheeks rouged, the disgusting wrinkles of suffering that ridged his old face were patched up and painted, and on the smooth surface wrinkles of good nature and laughter and of pleasant good humor cheeriness were laid on artistically with fine brushes. Lazarus submitted indifferently to all they did with him, and soon was transformed into a stout, nice-looking old man, for all the world a quiet and good-humored grandfather of numerous children. He looked as though the smile with which he told funny stories had not left his lips, as though a quiet tenderness still lay hidden in the corner of his eyes. But the wedding dress they did not dare to take off, and they could not change his eyes, the dark, terrible eyes out of which stared the incomprehensible there. Six. Lazarus was untouched by the magnificence of the imperial apartments. He remained solidly indifferent, as though he saw no contrast between his ruined house at the edge of the desert and the solid, beautiful palace of stone. Under his feet the hard marble of the floor took on the semblance of the moving sands of the desert, and to his eyes the throngs of gaily dressed haughty men were as unreal as the emptiness of the air. They looked not into his face as he passed by, fearing to come under the awful bane of his eyes. But when the sound of his heavy steps announced that he had passed, heads were lifted, and eyes examined with timid curiosity the figure of the corpulent, tall, slightly stooping old man as he slowly passed into the heart of the imperial palace. If death itself had appeared, men would not have feared it so much, for hitherto death had been known to the dead only, and life to the living only, and between these two there had been no bridge. But this strange being knew death, and that knowledge of his was felt to be mysterious and cursed. He will kill our great divine Augustus! Men cried with horror, and they hurled curses after him. Slowly and stolidly he passed them by, penetrating ever deeper into the palace. Caesar knew already who Lazarus was, and was prepared to meet him. He was a courageous man. He felt his power was invincible, and in the fateful encounter with the man wonderfully raised from the dead he refused to lean on other men's weak help. Man to man, face to face, he met Lazarus. Do not fix your gaze on me, Lazarus, he commanded. I have heard that your head is like the head of Medusa, and turns into stone all upon whom you look. But I should like to have a close look at you, and to talk to you before I turn into stone. He added, in a spirit of playfulness that concealed his real misgivings. Approaching him he examined closely Lazarus's face and his strange festive clothes, though his eyes were sharp and keen he was deceived by the skillful counterfeit. Well, your appearance is not terrible venerable, sir, but all the worse for men when the terrible takes on such a venerable and pleasant appearance. Now, let us talk. Augustus sat down, and as much by glance as by words began the discussion. Why did you not salute me when you entered? Lazarus answered it differently. I did not know it was necessary. You are a Christian? No. Augustus nodded approvingly. That is good. I do not like the Christians. They shake the tree of life, forbidding it to bear fruit, and they scatter to the wind its fragrant blossoms. But who are you? With some effort Lazarus answered. I was dead. I heard about that. But who are you now? Lazarus's answer came slowly. Finally he said again listlessly and indistinctly. I was dead. Listen to me, stranger, said the Emperor sharply, giving expression to what had been in his mind before. My empire is an empire of the living. My people are a people of the living and not of the dead. You are superfluous here. I do not know who you are. I do not know what you have seen there. But if you lie, I hate your lies. And if you tell the truth, I hate your truth. In my heart I feel the pulse of life. In my hands I feel power. And my proud thoughts, like eagles, fly through space. Behind my back, under the protection of my authority, under the shadows of laws I have created, men live and labor and rejoice. Do you hear this divine harmony of life? Do you hear the war cry that men hurl into the face of the future, challenging it to strife? Augustus extended his arms reverently and solemnly cried out, Blessed art thou, great divine life. But Lazarus was silent, and the Emperor continued more severely. You are not wanted here. Pitiful, remnant, half devoured of death, you fill men with distress in aversion to life. Like a caterpillar on the fields you are gnawing away at the full seed of joy, exuding the slime of despair and sorrow. Your truth is like a rusted sword in the hands of a knight assassin, and I shall condemn you to death as an assassin. But first I want to look into your eyes. May hap only cowards fear them, and brave men are spurred on to struggle and victory. Then you will merit not death, but a reward. Look at me, Lazarus. At first it seemed to divine Augustus as if a friend were looking at him, so soft, so alluring, so gently fascinating was the gaze of Lazarus. It promised not horror, but quiet rest, and the infinite dwelt there as a fond mistress, a compassionate sister, a mother. And ever stronger grew its gentle embrace until he felt as it were the breath of a mouth hungry for kisses. Then it seemed as if iron bones protruded in a ravenous grip and closed upon him in an iron band, and cold nails touched his heart, and slowly, slowly sank into it. It pains me, said divine Augustus, growing pale. But look, Lazarus, look. Ponderous gates shutting off eternity appeared to be slowly swinging open, and through the growing aperture poured in coldly and calmly the awful horror of the infinite. Boundless emptiness and boundless gloom entered like two shadows extinguishing the sun, removing the ground from under the feet and the cover from over the head. And the pain in his icy heart ceased. Look at me. Look at me, Lazarus! commanded Augustus, staggering. Time ceased, and the beginning of things came perilously near to the end. The throne of Augustus, so recently erected, fell to pieces, and emptiness took the place of the throne and of Augustus. Rome fell silently into ruins. A new city rose in its place, and it too was erased by emptiness. Like phantom giants, cities, kingdoms, and countries swiftly fell and disappeared into emptiness, swallowed up in the black maw of the infinite. Cease, commanded the Emperor. Already the accent of indifference was in his voice. His arms hung powerless, and his eagle eyes flashed and were dimmed again, struggling against the overwhelming darkness. You have killed me, Lazarus, he said drowsily. These words of despair saved him. He thought of the people whose shield he was destined to be, and a sharp, redeeming pang pierced his dull heart. He thought of them doomed to perish, and he was filled with anguish. First they seemed bright shadows in the gloom of the infinite. How terrible! Then they appeared as fragile vessels with life agitated blood and hearts that knew both sorrow and great joy. And he thought of them with tenderness. And so thinking and feeling, inclining the scales now to the side of life, now to the side of death, he slowly returned to life, to find in its suffering and joy a refuge from the gloom emptiness and fear of the infinite. No. You did not kill me, Lazarus, he said firmly. But I will kill you. Go. Evening came, and Divine Augustus partook of food and drink with great joy. But there were moments when his raised arm would remain suspended in the air, and the light of his shining eagle eyes was dimmed. It seemed as if an icy wave of horror washed against his feet. He was vanquished but not killed, and coldly awaited his doom, like a black shadow. His nights were haunted by horror, but the bright days still brought him joys as well as the sorrows of life. Next day by order of the Emperor they burned out Lazarus's eyes with hot irons and sent him home. Even Augustus dared not kill him. Lazarus returned to the desert, and the desert received him with the breath of the hissing wind and the ardor of the glowing sun. Again he sat on the stone with matted beard uplifted and two black hulls where the eyes had once been looked dull and horrible at the sky. In the distance the holy city surged and roared restlessly, but near him all was deserted and still. No one approached the place where Lazarus miraculously raised from the dead past his last days, for his neighbors had long since abandoned their homes. His cursed knowledge driven by the hot irons from his eyes deep into the brain lay there in ambush, as if from ambush it might spring out upon men with a thousand unseen eyes. No one dared to look at Lazarus. And in the evening, when the sun, swollen crimson and growing larger bent its way toward the west, blind Lazarus slowly groped after it. He stumbled against stones and fell, corpulent and feeble he rose heavily and walked on, and against the red curtain of sunset his dark form and outstretched arms gave him the semblance of a cross. It happened once that he went and never returned. Thus ended the second life of Lazarus who for three days had been in the mysterious thralldom of death and then was miraculously raised from the dead. End of Lazarus by Leonid Andreev This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer visit www.librivox.org. That's L-I-B-R-I-V-O-X.org. Recoded by Glenn Hallstrom, aka Smokestack Jones. SmokestackJones at gmail.com. Nair Lehotep by H.P. Lovecraft. Nair Lehotep. The Crawling Chaos. I am the last. I will tell the audience 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 phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about 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 demonic alteration in the sequence of the seasons. The autumn heat lingered fiercely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown. And it was then that Nair Lehotep came out of Egypt. Who he was no one could tell. But he was of the old native blood. It looked like a pharaoh. The Phalaean 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 in this planet. Into the lands of civilization came Nair Lehotep, 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 his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to seek Nair Lehotep and shuddered. And where Nair Lehotep went, rest vanished. But the small hours were rent with the 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, plying moon, as it glimmered on green waters gliding under bridges and old steeples crumbling against a sickly sky. I remember when Nair Lehotep 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. And what was thrown on the screen in the darkened room prophesized things, none but Nair Lehotep dared prophecy, and that in the sputter of the sparks there was taken from man that which he had never been taken before, which shooed only in his eyes. And I heard it hinted abroad that those who knew Nair Lehotep 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 Nair Lehotep through the stifling night and up the endless stairs into the choking room. And shadowed on a 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 dimming, cooling sun. Then the sparks played amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and Nair stood upon and what's 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, Nair Lehotep 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 could never be afraid, and others screamed with me for solace. We swear 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 and voluntary formations, and seemed to know our destinations that we dared not think of them. Once we looked at the pavement and found the blocks loose and displaced by grass, with scarce a line of rusted metal to shoe where the tramways had run, and again we saw a tram-carve, lone, windowless, dilapidated, and almost on its side. When we gazed around the horizon, we could not find the third tower by the river. I 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 shocking 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 felt a chilled touch, which was not of the hot autumn. For as we stalked out in the dark moor, we beheld around us the hellish moon glitter of evil snows. Trackless, inexplicable snows, swept us under in one direction only, where lay a gulf all the blocker for its glittering walls. The columns seemed very thin indeed as it plotted 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 companions vanished. But my power to linger was slight. As it beckoned by those who had gone before, I half floated between the titanic snow drifts, quivering and afraid into the sightless vortex of the unimaginable, screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious only the gods that were can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow writing in hands that are not hands, and world blindly past ghastly midnight of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts and 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 wine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlitened chambers beyond time, the detestable pounding and piping where unto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly, the gigantic, tenebrous, ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlahotep, the end of Nyarlahotep by H. P. Loughrat.