In the grey[44] light of dawn I staggered from the vault and locked the chain of the door behind me. I was no longer a young man, though but twenty-one winters had chilled my bodily frame. Early-rising[45] villagers who observed my homeward progress looked at me strangely, and marvelled[46] at the signs of ribald revelry which they saw in one whose life was known to be sober and solitary. I did not appear before my parents till after a long and refreshing sleep.
Henceforward I haunted the tomb each night; seeing, hearing,[47] and doing things I must never recall.[48] My speech, always susceptible to environmental influences, was the first thing to succumb to the change; and my suddenly acquired archaism of diction was soon remarked upon. Later a queer boldness and recklessness came into my demeanour,[49] till I unconsciously grew to possess the bearing of a man of the world despite my lifelong seclusion. My formerly silent tongue waxed voluble with the easy grace of a Chesterfield or the godless cynicism of a Rochester. I displayed a peculiar erudition utterly unlike the fantastic, monkish lore over which I had pored in youth; and covered the fly-leaves[50] of my books with facile impromptu epigrams which brought up suggestions of Gay, Prior, and the sprightliest of the Augustan wits and rhymesters.[51] One morning at breakfast I came close to disaster by declaiming in palpably liquorish accents an effusion of eighteenth-century Bacchanalian mirth;[52] a bit of Georgian playfulness never recorded in a book, which ran something like this:
Come hither, my lads, with your tankards of ale,
And drink to the present before it shall fail;[53]
Pile each on your platter a mountain of beef,
For ’tis[54] eating and drinking that bring us relief:
So fill up your glass,[55]
For life[56] will soon pass;[57]
When you’re dead ye’ll ne’er drink to your king or your lass![58]
Anacreon had a red nose, so they say;
But what’s a red nose if ye’re happy[59] and gay?
Gad split me![60] I’d rather be red whilst I’m here[61]
Than white as a lily—and dead half a year!
So Betty, my miss,
Come give me a kiss;[62]
In hell[63] there’s no innkeeper’s daughter like this!
Young Harry,[64] propp’d up just as straight as he’s able,
Will soon lose his wig and slip under the table;[65]
But fill up your goblets and pass ’em around—[66]
Better under the table than under the ground!
So revel and chaff
As ye thirstily quaff:[67]
Under six feet of dirt ’tis less easy to laugh!
The[68] fiend strike me blue! I’m scarce able to walk,[69]
And damn[70] me if I can stand upright or talk![71]
Here, landlord, bid[72] Betty to summon a chair;
I’ll try home for a while, for my wife is not there![73]
So lend me a hand;
I’m not able to stand,
But I’m gay whilst I linger on top of the land![74]
About this time I conceived my present fear of fire and thunderstorms. Previously indifferent to such things, I had now an unspeakable horror of them; and would retire to the innermost recesses of the house whenever the heavens threatened an electrical display. A favourite[75] haunt of mine during the day was the ruined cellar of the mansion that had burned down, and in fancy I would picture the structure as it had been in its prime. On one occasion I startled a villager by leading him confidently to a shallow sub-cellar,[76] of whose existence I seemed to know in spite of the fact that it had been unseen and forgotten for many generations.
At last came that which I had long feared. My parents, alarmed at the altered manner and appearance of their only son, commenced to exert over my movements a kindly espionage which threatened to result in disaster. I had told no one of my visits to the tomb, having guarded my secret purpose with religious zeal since childhood; but now I was forced to exercise care in threading the mazes of the wooded hollow, that I might throw off a possible pursuer. My key to the vault I kept suspended from a cord about my neck, its presence known only to me. I never carried out of the sepulchre[77] any of the things I came upon whilst within its walls.
One morning as I emerged from the damp tomb and fastened the chain of the portal with none too steady hand, I beheld in an adjacent thicket the dreaded face of a watcher. Surely the end was near; for my bower was discovered, and the objective of my nocturnal journeys[78] revealed. The man did not accost me, so I hastened home in an effort to overhear what he might report to my careworn father. Were my sojourns beyond the chained door about to be proclaimed to the world? Imagine my delighted astonishment on hearing the spy inform my parent[79] in a cautious whisper that I had spent the night in the bower outside the tomb; my sleep-filmed eyes fixed upon the crevice where the padlocked portal stood ajar! By what miracle had the watcher been thus deluded? I was now convinced that a supernatural agency protected me. Made bold by this heaven-sent circumstance, I began to resume perfect openness in going to the vault; confident that no one could witness my entrance. For a week I tasted to the full the[80] joys of that charnel conviviality which I must not describe, when the thing happened, and I was borne away to this accursed abode of sorrow and monotony.
I should not have ventured out that night; for the taint of thunder was in the clouds, and a hellish phosphorescence rose from the rank swamp at the bottom of the hollow. The call of the dead, too, was different. Instead of the hillside tomb, it was the charred cellar on the crest of the slope whose presiding daemon[81] beckoned to me with unseen fingers. As I emerged from an intervening grove upon the plain before the ruin, I beheld in the misty moonlight a thing I had always vaguely expected. The mansion, gone for a century, once more reared its stately height to the raptured vision; every window ablaze with the splendour[82] of many candles. Up the long drive rolled the coaches of the Boston gentry, whilst on foot came a numerous assemblage of powdered exquisites from the neighbouring[83] mansions. With this throng I mingled, though I knew I belonged with the hosts rather than with the guests. Inside the hall were[84] music, laughter, and wine on every hand. Several faces I recognised;[85] though I should have known them better had they been shrivelled[86] or eaten away by death and decomposition. Amidst a wild and reckless throng I was the wildest and most abandoned. Gay blasphemy poured in torrents from my lips, and in my[87] shocking sallies I heeded no law of God, Man, or Nature.[88] Suddenly a peal of thunder, resonant even above the din of the swinish revelry, clave the very roof and laid a hush of fear upon the boisterous company. Red tongues of flame and searing gusts of heat engulfed the house; and the roysterers, struck with terror at the descent of a calamity which seemed to transcend the bounds of unguided Nature,[89] fled shrieking into the night. I alone remained, riveted to my seat by a grovelling[90] fear which I had never felt before. And then a second horror took possession of my soul. Burnt alive to ashes,[91] my body dispersed by the four winds, I might never lie in the tomb of the Hydes! [92] Was not my coffin prepared for me? Had I not a right to rest till eternity amongst the descendants of Sir Geoffrey Hyde? Aye! I would claim my heritage of death, even though my soul go seeking through the ages for another corporeal tenement to represent it on that vacant slab in the alcove of the vault. Jervas Hyde should never share the sad fate of Palinurus!
As the phantom of the burning house faded, I found myself screaming and struggling madly in the arms of two men, one of whom was the spy who had followed me to the tomb. Rain was pouring down in torrents, and upon the southern horizon were flashes of the[93] lightning that had so lately passed over our heads. My father, his face lined with sorrow, stood by as I shouted my demands to be laid within the tomb;[94] frequently admonishing my captors to treat me as gently as they could. A blackened circle on the floor of the ruined cellar told of a violent stroke from the heavens; and from this spot a group of curious villagers with lanterns were prying a small box of antique workmanship[95] which the thunderbolt had brough
t to light.[96] Ceasing my futile and now objectless writhing, I watched the spectators as they viewed the treasure-trove, and was permitted to share in their discoveries. The box, whose fastenings were broken by the stroke which had unearthed it, contained many papers and objects of value;[97] but I had eyes for one thing alone. It was the porcelain miniature of a young man in a smartly curled bag-wig, and bore the initials “J. H.” The face was such that as I gazed, I might well have been studying my mirror.
On the following day I was brought to this room with the barred windows, but I have been kept informed of certain things through an aged and simple-minded servitor, for whom I bore a fondness in infancy, and who like me[98] loves the churchyard. What I have dared relate of my experiences within the vault has brought me only pitying smiles. My father, who visits me frequently, declares that at no time did I pass the chained portal, and swears that the rusted padlock had not been touched for fifty years when he examined it. He even says that all the village knew of my journeys to the tomb, and that I was often watched as I slept in the bower outside the grim facade, my half-open eyes fixed on the crevice that leads to the interior. Against these assertions I have no tangible proof to offer, since my key to the padlock was lost in the struggle on that night of horrors. The strange things of the past which I learnt[99] during those nocturnal meetings with the dead he dismisses as the fruits of my lifelong and omnivorous[100] browsing amongst the ancient volumes of the family library. Had it not been for my old servant Hiram, I should have by this time become quite convinced of my madness.
But Hiram, loyal to the last, has held faith in me, and has done that which impels me to make public at least a[101] part of my story. A week ago he burst open the lock which chains the door of the tomb perpetually ajar, and descended with a lantern into the murky depths. On a slab in an alcove he found an old but[102] empty coffin whose tarnished plate bears the single word “Jervas”.[103] In that coffin and in that vault they have promised me I shall be buried.
Notes
Editor’s Note: In the absence of an A.Ms. or T.Ms., we are reliant on the first two publications of the story—Vagrant (March 1922) and Weird Tales (January 1926)—to establish the text. The Vagrant text, typeset by W. Paul Cook, seems on the whole sound; but the Weird Tales text bears evidence of some deliberate revisions by HPL, so he in all likelihood prepared a revised typescript and sent it on to the magazine. There is a legitimate debate as to which of the divergences between the Vagrant and Weird Tales texts are the result of errors by the latter or revisions by HPL; certainly, the Weird Tales text contains the usual array of changes that the magazine tended to make in HPL’s stories (Americanisation of HPL’s British spellings, paragraphing and punctuational changes, etc.), but other changes (such as the omission of the word “disastrous” [40.9]) are likely to be HPL’s revisions. The Arkham House texts followed the Weird Tales text, making further errors. An A.Ms. of the untitled poem that appears in the story survives, as part of a fragmentary letter; it is titled “Gaudeamus” (Latin for “let us delight”) and presumably predates the story itself. But it appears to be an early draft, and HPL probably revised it when writing the story; hence its variant readings should not be incorporated into the text.
Texts: A = Vagrant No. 14 (March 1922): 50–64; B = Weird Tales 7, No. 1 (January 1926): 117–23; C = Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (Arkham House, 1965), 9–18; D = A.Ms. of “Gaudeamus” (JHL). Copy-text: A (but with a few readings from B).
1. “Sedibus . . . / —Virgil.] Sedibus ut saltem placidis in morte quiescam.—Virgil. B; om. C
2. super-sight] supersight B, C
3. recreations] recreation C
4. little-known] little known A, B, C
5. region] regions A
6. analysing] analyzing B, C
7. struggling] struggilng A
8. discoloured] discolored B, C
9. ajar] ajar B, C
10. a] a disastrous A
11. had] om. A
12. sepulchre.] sepulcher. B, C
13. land;] land, A, C
14. Nature] nature B, C
15. odours] odors B, C
16. consciousness.] consciousness. ¶ B, C
17. briers,] briars, B, C
18. funereal] funeral B, C
19. cold,] cold A
20. tantalisingly] tantalizingly B, C
21. at any cost] at any cost A
22. iron-grey] iron-gray B
23. room] room, B, C
24. surprised] surprized B
25. odour] odor B, C
26. “Lives”] Lives B, C
27. This] The C
28. headstone,] head-/stone, A, C
29. stone] ston A
30. now] om. A
31. listening] listening B, C
32. favourite] favorite B, C
33. mould-stained] mold-stained B, C
34. lie] lit A
35. voices.] voices. B, C
36. those] these B, C
37. quality] quality B, C
38. pronunciation,] pronunciation A
39. dialect, . . . ago,] dialect . . . ago A
40. sepulchre.] sepulcher. B, C
41. musty,] musty A
42. well-preserved] well preserved A, B, C
43. to] om. C
44. grey] gray B, C
45. Early-rising] Early rising A
46. marvelled] marveled B, C
47. hearing,] hearing A
48. recall.] reveal. A
49. demeanour,] demeanor, B, C
50. fly-leaves] fly leaves A; fly-/leaves C
51. rhymesters.] rimesters. B, C
52. eighteenth-century . . . mirth;] Eighteenth Century bacchanalian mirth B; Eighteenth Century bacchanalian mirth, C
53. fail;] fail. D
54. ’tis] tis D
55. glass,] glass D
56. life] Life D
57. pass;] pass: D
58. king . . . lass!] King . . . lass. D
59. happy] merry D
60. me!] me, A
61. here] D; here, A, B, C
62. kiss;] kiss D
63. hell] h—l A, D
64. Harry,] Harry D
65. table;] table, C; table: D
66. ’em around—] them around; D
67. quaff:] quaff, D
68. The] May the D
69. walk,] talk, D
70. damn] d—n A, D
71. talk!] walk. D
72. landlord, bid] landlord! Bid A; landlord, tell D
73. there!] there. D
74. Come hither, . . . land!] Come hither, . . . land! C
75. favourite] favorite B, C
76. sub-cellar,] sub-cellar A
77. sepulchre] sepulcher B, C
78. journeys] journey A
79. parent] father A
80. the] om. C
81. daemon] demon B, C
82. splendour] splendor B, C
83. neighbouring] neighboring B, C
84. were] was A
85. recognised;] recognized; B, C
86. shrivelled] shriveled B, C
87. my] om. C
88. Man, or Nature.] man, or nature. ¶ B, C
89. Nature,] nature, B, C
90. grovelling] groveling B, C
91. ashes,] ashes; A
92. Hydes! ] Hydes. A
93. the] om. C
94. tomb;] tomb, A, C
95. workmanship] workmanship, B, C
96. light.] light. ¶ B, C
97. value;] value, C
98. who like me] who, like me, B, C
99. I learnt] I have learned B, C
100. and omnivorous] om. A
101. a] om. C
102. but] om. A
103. word “Jervas”.] word “Jervas.” A; word: Jervas. B, C
Dagon
I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone makes life endurable, I can
bear the torture no longer; and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below. Do not think from my slavery to morphine that I am a weakling or a degenerate. When you have read these hastily scrawled pages you may guess, though never fully realise,[1] why it is that I must have forgetfulness or death.
It was in one of the most open and least frequented parts of the broad[2] Pacific that the packet of which I was supercargo fell a victim to the German sea-raider. The great war was then at its very beginning, and the enemy’s navy had not reached its later degree of ruthlessness,[3] so that our vessel was made a legitimate prize, whilst we of her crew were treated with all the fairness and consideration due us as naval prisoners. So liberal, indeed, was the discipline of our captors, that five days after we were taken I managed to escape alone in a small boat with water and provisions for a good length of time.
When I finally found myself adrift and free, I had but little idea of my surroundings. Never a competent navigator, I could only guess vaguely by the sun and stars that I was somewhat south of the equator. Of the longitude I knew nothing, and no island or coast-line[4] was in sight. The weather kept fair, and for uncounted days I drifted aimlessly beneath the scorching[5] sun; waiting either for some passing ship, or to be cast on[6] the shores of some habitable land. But neither ship nor land appeared, and I began to despair in my solitude upon the heaving vastnesses of unbroken blue.