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The Evil Clergyman By H. P. Lovecraft  |
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I was shewn into the attic chamber by a grave, intelligent-looking man with quiet clothes and
an iron-grey beard, who spoke to me in this fashion:  “Yes, he lived here—but I don’t advise your doing
anything. Your curiosity makes you irresponsible. We never come here at night, and it’s
only because of his will that we keep it this way. You know what he did. That
abominable society took charge at last, and we don’t know where he is buried. There
was no way the law or anything else could reach the society.“I hope you won’t stay till after dark. And I beg of you to let
that thing on the table—the thing that looks like a match box—alone. We don’t
know what it is, but we suspect it has something to do with what he did. We even avoid
looking at it very steadily.”After a time the man left me alone in the attic room. It was very dingy and
dusty, and only primitively furnished, but it had a neatness which shewed it was not a slum-denizen’s
quarters. There were shelves full of theological and classical books, and another bookcase containing
treatises on magic—Paracelsus, Albertus Magnus, Trithemius, Hermes Trismegistus, Borellus,
and others in strange alphabets whose titles I could not decipher. The furniture was very plain.
There was a door, but it led only into a closet. The only egress was the aperture in the floor
up to which the crude, steep staircase led. The windows were of bull’s-eye pattern, and
the black oak beams bespoke unbelievable antiquity. Plainly, this house was of the old world.
I seemed to know where I was, but cannot recall what I then knew. Certainly the town was
not London. My impression is of a small seaport.The small object on the table fascinated me intensely. I seemed to know what
to do with it, for I drew a pocket electric light—or what looked like one—out of
my pocket and nervously tested its flashes. The light was not white but violet, and seemed less
like true light than like some radio-active bombardment. I recall that I did not regard it as
a common flashlight—indeed, I had a common flashlight in another pocket.It was getting dark, and the ancient roofs and chimney-pots outside looked
very queer through the bull’s-eye window-panes. Finally I summoned up courage and propped
the small object up on the table against a book—then turned the rays of the peculiar violet
light upon it. The light seemed now to be more like a rain or hail of small violet particles
than like a continuous beam. As the particles struck the glassy surface at the centre of the
strange device, they seemed to produce a crackling noise like the sputtering of a vacuum tube
through which sparks are passed. The dark glassy surface displayed a pinkish glow, and a vague
white shape seemed to be taking form at its centre. Then I noticed that I was not alone in the
room—and put the ray-projector back in my pocket.But the newcomer did not speak—nor did I hear any sound whatever during
all the immediately following moments. Everything was shadowy pantomime, as if seen at a vast
distance through some intervening haze—although on the other hand the newcomer and all
subsequent comers loomed large and close, as if both near and distant, according to some abnormal
geometry.The newcomer was a thin, dark man of medium height attired in the clerical
garb of the Anglican church. He was apparently about thirty years old, with a sallow, olive
complexion and fairly good features, but an abnormally high forehead. His black hair was well
cut and neatly brushed, and he was clean-shaven though blue-chinned with a heavy growth of beard.
He wore rimless spectacles with steel bows. His build and lower facial features were like other
clergymen I had seen, but he had a vastly higher forehead, and was darker and more intelligent-looking—also
more subtly and concealedly evil-looking. At the present moment—having just lighted
a faint oil lamp—he looked nervous, and before I knew it he was casting all his magical
books into a fireplace on the window side of the room (where the wall slanted sharply) which
I had not noticed before. The flames devoured the volumes greedily—leaping up in strange
colours and emitting indescribably hideous odours as the strangely hieroglyphed leaves and wormy
bindings succumbed to the devastating element. All at once I saw there were others in the room—grave-looking
men in clerical costume, one of whom wore the bands and knee-breeches of a bishop. Though I
could hear nothing, I could see that they were bringing a decision of vast import to the first-comer.
They seemed to hate and fear him at the same time, and he seemed to return these sentiments.
His face set itself into a grim expression, but I could see his right hand shaking as he tried
to grip the back of a chair. The bishop pointed to the empty case and to the fireplace (where
the flames had died down amidst a charred, non-committal mass), and seemed filled with a peculiar
loathing. The first-comer then gave a wry smile and reached out with his left hand toward the
small object on the table. Everyone then seemed frightened. The procession of clerics began
filing down the steep stairs through the trap-door in the floor, turning and making menacing
gestures as they left. The bishop was last to go.The first-comer now went to a cupboard on the inner side of the room and extracted
a coil of rope. Mounting a chair, he attached one end of the rope to a hook in the great exposed
central beam of black oak, and began making a noose with the other end. Realising he was about
to hang himself, I started forward to dissuade or save him. He saw me and ceased his preparations,
looking at me with a kind of triumph which puzzled and disturbed me. He slowly stepped
down from the chair and began gliding toward me with a positively wolfish grin on his dark,
thin-lipped face.I felt somehow in deadly peril, and drew out the peculiar ray-projector as
a weapon of defence. Why I thought it could help me, I do not know. I turned it on—full
in his face, and saw the sallow features glow first with violet and then with pinkish light.
His expression of wolfish exultation began to be crowded aside by a look of profound fear—which
did not, however, wholly displace the exultation. He stopped in his tracks—then, flailing
his arms wildly in the air, began to stagger backward. I saw he was edging toward the open stair-well
in the floor, and tried to shout a warning, but he did not hear me. In another instant he had
lurched backward through the opening and was lost to view.I found difficulty in moving toward the stair-well, but when I did get there
I found no crushed body on the floor below. Instead there was a clatter of people coming up
with lanterns, for the spell of phantasmal silence had broken, and I once more heard sounds
and saw figures as normally tri-dimensional. Something had evidently drawn a crowd to this place.
Had there been a noise I had not heard? Presently the two people (simply villagers, apparently)
farthest in the lead saw me—and stood paralysed. One of them shrieked loudly and reverberently:“Ahrrh! . . . It be ’ee, zur? Again?”Then they all turned and fled frantically. All, that is, but one. When the
crowd was gone I saw the grave-bearded man who had brought me to this place—standing alone
with a lantern. He was gazing at me gaspingly and fascinatedly, but did not seem afraid. Then
he began to ascend the stairs, and joined me in the attic. He spoke:“So you didn’t let it alone! I’m sorry. I know what
has happened. It happened once before, but the man got frightened and shot himself. You ought
not to have made him come back. You know what he wants. But you mustn’t
get frightened like the other man he got. Something very strange and terrible has happened to
you, but it didn’t get far enough to hurt your mind and personality. If you’ll keep
cool, and accept the need for making certain radical readjustments in your life, you can keep
right on enjoying the world, and the fruits of your scholarship. But you can’t live here—and
I don’t think you’ll wish to go back to London. I’d advise America.“You mustn’t try anything more with that—thing. Nothing can
be put back now. It would only make matters worse to do—or summon—anything. You
are not as badly off as you might be—but you must get out of here at once and stay away.
You’d better thank heaven it didn’t go further. . . .“I’m going to prepare you as bluntly as I can. There’s been
a certain change—in your personal appearance. He always causes that. But in a new
country you can get used to it. There’s a mirror up at the other end of the room, and
I’m going to take you to it. You’ll get a shock—though you will see nothing
repulsive.”I was now shaking with a deadly fear, and the bearded man almost had to hold
me up as he walked me across the room to the mirror, the faint lamp (i.e., that formerly on
the table, not the still fainter lantern he had brought) in his free hand. This is what I saw
in the glass:A thin, dark man of medium stature attired in the clerical garb of the Anglican
church, apparently about thirty, and with rimless, steel-bowed glasses glistening beneath a
sallow, olive forehead of abnormal height.It was the silent first-comer who had burned his books.For all the rest of my life, in outward form, I was to be that man! | |||||||||||||
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