The Alchemist

by H. P. Lovecraft

　　High up, crowning the grassy summit of a swelling mount whose sides are woodednear the base with the gnarled trees of the primeval forest stands the oldchateau of my ancestors. For centuries its lofty battlements have frowned downupon the wild and rugged countryside about, serving as a home and stronghold forthe proud house whose honored line is older even than the moss-grown castlewalls. These ancient turrets, stained by the storms of generations and crumblingunder the slow yet mighty pressure of time, formed in the ages of feudalism oneof the most dreaded and formidable fortresses in all France. From itsmachicolated parapets and mounted battlements Barons, Counts, and even Kings hadbeen defied, yet never had its spacious halls resounded to the footsteps of theinvader.But since those glorious years, all is changed. A poverty but little above thelevel of dire want, together with a pride of name that forbids its alleviationby the pursuits of commercial life, have prevented the scions of our line frommaintaining their estates in pristine splendour; and the falling stones of thewalls, the overgrown vegetation in the parks, the dry and dusty moat, the ill-paved courtyards, and toppling towers without, as well as the sagging floors,the worm-eaten wainscots, and the faded tapestries within, all tell a gloomytale of fallen grandeur. As the ages passed, first one, then another of the fourgreat turrets were left to ruin, until at last but a single tower housed thesadly reduced descendants of the once mighty lords of the estate.It was in one of the vast and gloomy chambers of this remaining tower that I,Antoine, last of the unhappy and accursed Counts de C-, first saw the light ofday, ninety long years ago. Within these walls and amongst the dark and shadowyforests, the wild ravines and grottos of the hillside below, were spent thefirst years of my troubled life. My parents I never knew. My father had beenkilled at the age of thirty-two, a month before I was born, by the fall of astone somehow dislodged from one of the deserted parapets of the castle. And mymother having died at my birth, my care and education devolved solely upon oneremaining servitor, an old and trusted man of considerable intelligence, whosename I remember as Pierre. I was an only child and the lack of companionshipwhich this fact entailed upon me was augmented by the strange care exercised bymy aged guardian, in excluding me from the society of the peasant children whoseabodes were scattered here and there upon the plains that surround the base ofthe hill. At that time, Pierre said that this restriction was imposed upon mebecause my noble birth placed me above association with such plebeian company.Now I know that its real object was to keep from my ears the idle tales of thedread curse upon our line that were nightly told and magnified by the simpletenantry as they conversed in hushed accents in the glow of their cottagehearths.Thus isolated, and thrown upon my own resources, I spent the hours of mychildhood in poring over the ancient tomes that filled the shadow hauntedlibrary of the chateau, and in roaming without aim or purpose through theperpetual dust of the spectral wood that clothes the side of the hill near itsfoot. It was perhaps an effect of such surroundings that my mind early acquireda shade of melancholy. Those studies and pursuits which partake of the dark andoccult in nature most strongly claimed my attention.Of my own race I was permitted to learn singularly little, yet what smallknowledge of it I was able to gain seemed to depress me much. Perhaps it was atfirst only the manifest reluctance of my old preceptor to discuss with me mypaternal ancestry that gave rise to the terror which I ever felt at the mentionof my great house, yet as I grew out of childhood, I was able to piece togetherdisconnected fragments of discourse, let slip from the unwilling tongue whichhad begun to falter in approaching senility, that had a sort of relation to acertain circumstance which I had always deemed strange, but which now becamedimly terrible. The circumstance to which I allude is the early age at which allthe Counts of my line had met their end. Whilst I had hitherto considered thisbut a natural attribute of a family of short-lived men, I afterward ponderedlong upon these premature deaths, and began to connect them with the wanderingsof the old man, who often spoke of a curse which for centuries had prevented thelives of the holders of my title from much exceeding the span of thirty-twoyears. Upon my twenty-first birthday, the aged Pierre gave to me a familydocument which he said had for many generations been handed down from father toson, and continued by each possessor. Its contents were of the most startlingnature, and its perusal confirmed the gravest of my apprehensions. At this time,my belief in the supernatural was firm and deep-seated, else I should havedismissed with scorn the incredible narrative unfolded before my eyes.The paper carried me back to the days of the thirteenth century, when the oldcastle in which I sat had been a feared and impregnable fortress. It told of acertain ancient man who had once dwelled on our estates, a person of no smallaccomplishments, though little above the rank of peasant, by name, Michel,usually designated by the surname of Mauvais, the Evil, on account of hissinister reputation. He had studied beyond the custom of his kind, seeking suchthings as the Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Eternal Life, and was reputedwise in the terrible secrets of Black Magic and Alchemy. Michel Mauvais had oneson, named Charles, a youth as proficient as himself in the hidden arts, who hadtherefore been called Le Sorcier, or the Wizard. This pair, shunned by allhonest folk, were suspected of the most hideous practices. Old Michel was saidto have burnt his wife alive as a sacrifice to the Devil, and the unaccountabledisappearance of many small peasant children was laid at the dreaded door ofthese two. Yet through the dark natures of the father and son ran one redeemingray of humanity; the evil old man loved his offspring with fierce intensity,whilst the youth had for his parent a more than filial affection.One night the castle on the hill was thrown into the wildest confusion by thevanishment of young Godfrey, son to Henri, the Count. A searching party, headedby the frantic father, invaded the cottage of the sorcerers and there came uponold Michel Mauvais, busy over a huge and violently boiling cauldron. Withoutcertain cause, in the ungoverned madness of fury and despair, the Count laidhands on the aged wizard, and ere he released his murderous hold, his victim wasno more. Meanwhile, joyful servants were proclaiming the finding of youngGodfrey in a distant and unused chamber of the great edifice, telling too latethat poor Michel had been killed in vain. As the Count and his associates turnedaway from the lowly abode of the alchemist, the form of Charles Le Sorcierappeared through the trees. The excited chatter of the menials standing abouttold him what had occurred, yet he seemed at first unmoved at his father's fate.Then, slowly advancing to meet the Count, he pronounced in dull yet terribleaccents the curse that ever afterward haunted the house of C-.'May ne'er a noble of thy murd'rous line

　　Survive to reach a greater age than thine!'spake he, when, suddenly leaping backwards into the black woods, he drew fromhis tunic a phial of colourless liquid which he threw into the face of hisfather's slayer as he disappeared behind the inky curtain of the night. TheCount died without utterance, and was buried the next day, but little more thantwo and thirty years from the hour of his birth. No trace of the assassin couldbe found, though relentless bands of peasants scoured the neighboring woods andthe meadowland around the hill.Thus time and the want of a reminder dulled the memory of the curse in the mindsof the late Count's family, so that when Godfrey, innocent cause of the wholetragedy and now bearing the title, was killed by an arrow whilst hunting at theage of thirty-two, there were no thoughts save those of grief at his demise. Butwhen, years afterward, the next young Count, Robert by name, was found dead in anearby field of no apparent cause, the peasants told in whispers that theirseigneur had but lately passed his thirty-second birthday when surprised byearly death. Louis, son to Robert, was found drowned in the moat at the samefateful age, and thus down through the centuries ran the ominous chronicle:Henris, Roberts, Antoines, and Armands snatched from happy and virtuous liveswhen little below the age of their unfortunate ancestor at his murder.That I had left at most but eleven years of further existence was made certainto me by the words which I had read. My life, previously held at small value,now became dearer to me each day, as I delved deeper and deeper into themysteries of the hidden world of black magic. Isolated as I was, modern sciencehad produced no impression upon me, and I laboured as in the Middle Ages, aswrapt as had been old Michel and young Charles themselves in the acquisition ofdemonological and alchemical learning. Yet read as I might, in no manner could Iaccount for the strange curse upon my line. In unusually rational moments Iwould even go so far as to seek a natural explanation, attributing the earlydeaths of my ancestors to the sinister Charles Le Sorcier and his heirs; yet,having found upon careful inquiry that there were no known descendants of thealchemist, I would fall back to occult studies, and once more endeavor to find aspell, that would release my house from its terrible burden. Upon one thing Iwas absolutely resolved. I should never wed, for, since no other branch of myfamily was in existence, I might thus end the curse with myself.As I drew near the age of thirty, old Pierre was called to the land beyond.Alone I buried him beneath the stones of the courtyard about which he had lovedto wander in life. Thus was I left to ponder on myself as the only humancreature within the great fortress, and in my utter solitude my mind began tocease its vain protest against the impending doom, to become almost reconciledto the fate which so many of my ancestors had met. Much of my time was nowoccupied in the exploration of the ruined and abandoned halls and towers of theold chateau, which in youth fear had caused me to shun, and some of which oldPierre had once told me had not been trodden by human foot for over fourcenturies. Strange and awesome were many of the objects I encountered.Furniture, covered by the dust of ages and crumbling with the rot of longdampness, met my eyes. Cobwebs in a profusion never before seen by me were spuneverywhere, and huge bats flapped their bony and uncanny wings on all sides ofthe otherwise untenanted gloom.Of my exact age, even down to days and hours, I kept a most careful record, foreach movement of the pendulum of the massive clock in the library told off somuch of my doomed existence. At length I approached that time which I had solong viewed with apprehension. Since most of my ancestors had been seized somelittle while before they reached the exact age of Count Henri at his end, I wasevery moment on the watch for the coming of the unknown death. In what strangeform the curse should overtake me, I knew not; but I was resolved at least thatit should not find me a cowardly or a passive victim. With new vigour I appliedmyself to my examination of the old chateau and its contents.It was upon one of the longest of all my excursions of discovery in the desertedportion of the castle, less than a week before that fatal hour which I felt mustmark the utmost limit of my stay on earth, beyond which I could have not eventhe slightest hope of continuing to draw breath that I came upon the culminatingevent of my whole life. I had spent the better part of the morning in climbingup and down half ruined staircases in one of the most dilapidated of the ancientturrets. As the afternoon progressed, I sought the lower levels, descending intowhat appeared to be either a mediaeval place of confinement, or a more recentlyexcavated storehouse for gunpowder. As I slowly traversed the nitre-encrustedpassageway at the foot of the last staircase, the paving became very damp, andsoon I saw by the light of my flickering torch that a blank, water-stained wallimpeded my journey. Turning to retrace my steps, my eye fell upon a smalltrapdoor with a ring, which lay directly beneath my foot. Pausing, I succeededwith difficulty in raising it, whereupon there was revealed a black aperture,exhaling noxious fumes which caused my torch to sputter, and disclosing in theunsteady glare the top of a flight of stone steps.As soon as the torch which I lowered into the repellent depths burned freely andsteadily, I commenced my descent. The steps were many, and led to a narrowstone-flagged passage which I knew must be far underground. This passage provedof great length, and terminated in a massive oaken door, dripping with themoisture of the place, and stoutly resisting all my attempts to open it. Ceasingafter a time my efforts in this direction, I had proceeded back some distancetoward the steps when there suddenly fell to my experience one of the mostprofound and maddening shocks capable of reception by the human mind. Withoutwarning, I heard the heavy door behind me creak slowly open upon its rustedhinges. My immediate sensations were incapable of analysis. To be confronted ina place as thoroughly deserted as I had deemed the old castle with evidence ofthe presence of man or spirit produced in my brain a horror of the most acutedescription. When at last I turned and faced the seat of the sound, my eyes musthave started from their orbits at the sight that they beheld.There in the ancient Gothic doorway stood a human figure. It was that of a manclad in a skull-cap and long mediaeval tunic of dark colour. His long hair andflowing beard were of a terrible and intense black hue, and of incredibleprofusion. His forehead, high beyond the usual dimensions; his cheeks, deep-sunken and heavily lined with wrinkles; and his hands, long, claw-like, andgnarled, were of such a deadly marble-like whiteness as I have never elsewhereseen in man. His figure, lean to the proportions of a skeleton, was strangelybent and almost lost within the voluminous folds of his peculiar garment. Butstrangest of all were his eyes, twin caves of abysmal blackness, profound inexpression of understanding, yet inhuman in degree of wickedness. These were nowfixed upon me, piercing my soul with their hatred, and rooting me to the spotwhereon I stood.At last the figure spoke in a rumbling voice that chilled me through with itsdull hollowness and latent malevolence. The language in which the discourse wasclothed was that debased form of Latin in use amongst the more learned men ofthe Middle Ages, and made familiar to me by my prolonged researches into theworks of the old alchemists and demonologists. The apparition spoke of the cursewhich had hovered over my house, told me of my coming end, dwelt on the wrongperpetrated by my ancestor against old Michel Mauvais, and gloated over therevenge of Charles Le Sorcier. He told how young Charles has escaped into thenight, returning in after years to kill Godfrey the heir with an arrow just ashe approached the age which had been his father's at his assassination; how hehad secretly returned to the estate and established himself, unknown, in theeven then deserted subterranean chamber whose doorway now framed the hideousnarrator, how he had seized Robert, son of Godfrey, in a field, forced poisondown his throat, and left him to die at the age of thirty-two, thus maintaingthe foul provisions of his vengeful curse. At this point I was left to imaginethe solution of the greatest mystery of all, how the curse had been fulfilledsince that time when Charles Le Sorcier must in the course of nature have died,for the man digressed into an account of the deep alchemical studies of the twowizards, father and son, speaking most particularly of the researches of CharlesLe Sorcier concerning the elixir which should grant to him who partook of iteternal life and youth.His enthusiasm had seemed for the moment to remove from his terrible eyes theblack malevolence that had first so haunted me, but suddenly the fiendish glarereturned and, with a shocking sound like the hissing of a serpent, the strangerraised a glass phial with the evident intent of ending my life as had Charles LeSorcier, six hundred years before, ended that of my ancestor. Prompted by somepreserving instinct of self-defense, I broke through the spell that had hithertoheld me immovable, and flung my now dying torch at the creature who menaced myexistence. I heard the phial break harmlessly against the stones of the passageas the tunic of the strange man caught fire and lit the horrid scene with aghastly radiance. The shriek of fright and impotent malice emitted by the would-be assassin proved too much for my already shaken nerves, and I fell prone uponthe slimy floor in a total faint.When at last my senses returned, all was frightfully dark, and my mind,remembering what had occurred, shrank from the idea of beholding any more; yetcuriosity over-mastered all. Who, I asked myself, was this man of evil, and howcame he within the castle walls? Why should he seek to avenge the death ofMichel Mauvais, and how bad the curse been carried on through all the longcenturies since the time of Charles Le Sorcier? The dread of years was liftedfrom my shoulder, for I knew that he whom I had felled was the source of all mydanger from the curse; and now that I was free, I burned with the desire tolearn more of the sinister thing which had haunted my line for centuries, andmade of my own youth one long-continued nightmare. Determined upon furtherexploration, I felt in my pockets for flint and steel, and lit the unused torchwhich I had with me.First of all, new light revealed the distorted and blackened form of themysterious stranger. The hideous eyes were now closed. Disliking the sight, Iturned away and entered the chamber beyond the Gothic door. Here I found whatseemed much like an alchemist's laboratory. In one corner was an immense pile ofshining yellow metal that sparkled gorgeously in the light of the torch. It mayhave been gold, but I did not pause to examine it, for I was strangely affectedby that which I had undergone. At the farther end of the apartment was anopening leading out into one of the many wild ravines of the dark hillsideforest. Filled with wonder, yet now realizing how the man had obtained access tothe chauteau, I proceeded to return. I had intended to pass by the remains ofthe stranger with averted face but, as I approached the body, I seemed to hearemanating from it a faint sound, as though life were not yet wholly extinct.Aghast, I turned to examine the charred and shrivelled figure on the floor.Then all at once the horrible eyes, blacker even than the seared face in whichthey were set, opened wide with an expression which I was unable to interpret.The cracked lips tried to frame words which I could not well understand. Once Icaught the name of Charles Le Sorcier, and again I fancied that the words'years' and 'curse' issued from the twisted mouth. Still I was at a loss togather the purport of his disconnnected speech. At my evident ignorance of hismeaning, the pitchy eyes once more flashed malevolently at me, until, helplessas I saw my opponent to be, I trembled as I watched him.Suddenly the wretch, animated with his last burst of strength, raised hispiteous head from the damp and sunken pavement. Then, as I remained, paralyzedwith fear, he found his voice and in his dying breath screamed forth those wordswhich have ever afterward haunted my days and nights. 'Fool!' he shrieked, 'Canyou not guess my secret? Have you no brain whereby you may recognize the willwhich has through six long centuries fulfilled the dreadful curse upon thehouse? Have I not told you of the great elixir of eternal life? Know you not howthe secret of Alchemy was solved? I tell you, it is I! I! I! that have lived forsix hundred years to maintain my revenge, for I am Charles Le Sorcier!'