What the Moon Brings

by H. P. Lovecraft

　　

---

I hate the moon - I am afraid of it - for when it shines on certain scenesfamiliar and loved it sometimes makes them unfamiliar and hideous. It was in the spectral summer when the moon shone down on the old gardenwhere I wandered; the spectral summer of narcotic flowers and humid seas offoliage that bring wild and many-coloured dreams. And as I walked by the shallowcrystal stream I saw unwonted ripples tipped with yellow light, as if thoseplacid waters were drawn on in resistless currents to strange oceans that arenot in the world. Silent and sparkling, bright and baleful, those moon-cursedwaters hurried I knew not whither; whilst from the embowered banks whitelotos-blossoms fluttered one by one in the opiate night-wind and droppeddespairingly into the stream, swirling away horribly under the arched, carvenbridge, and staring back with the sinister resignation of calm, dead faces.And as I ran along the shore, crushing sleeping flowers with heedless feetand maddened ever by the fear of unknown things and the lure of the dead faces,I saw that the garden had no end under that moon; for where by day the wallswere, there stretched now only new vistas of trees and paths, flowers andshrubs, stone idols and pagodas, and bendings of the yellow-litten stream pastgrassy banks and under grotesque bridges of marble. And the lips of the deadlotos-faces whispered sadly, and bade me follow, nor did I cease my steps tillthe stream became a river, and joined amidst marshes of swaying reeds andbeaches of gleaming sand the shore of a vast and nameless sea.Upon that sea the hateful moon shone, and over its unvocal waves weirdperfumes breeded. And as I saw therein the lotos-faces vanish, I longed for netsthat I might capture them and learn from them the secrets which the moon hadbrought upon the night. But when that moon went over to the west and the stilltide ebbed from the sullen shore, I saw in that light old spires that the wavesalmost uncovered, and white columns gay with festoons of green seaweed. Andknowing that to this sunken place all the dead had come, I trembled and did notwish again to speak with the lotos-faces.Yet when I saw afar out in the sea a black condor descend from the sky toseek rest on a vast reef, I would fain have questioned him, and asked him ofthose whom I had known when they were alive. This I would have asked him had henot been so far away, but he was very far, and could not be seen at all when hedrew nigh that gigantic reef.So I watched the tide go out under that sinking moon, and saw gleaming thespires, the towers, and the roofs of that dead, dripping city. And as I watched,my nostrils tried to close against the perfume-conquering stench of the world'sdead; for truly, in this unplaced and forgotten spot had all the flesh of thechurchyards gathered for puffy sea-worms to gnaw and glut upon.Over these horrors the evil moon now hung very low, but the puffy worms ofthe sea need no moon to feed by. And as I watched the ripples that told of thewrithing of worms beneath, I felt a new chill from afar out whither the condorhad flown, as if my flesh had caught a horror before my eyes had seen it.Nor had my flesh trembled without cause, for when I raised my eyes I sawthat the waters had ebbed very low, shewing much of the vast reef whose rim Ihad seen before. And when I saw that the reef was but the black basalt crown ofa shocking eikon whose monstrous forehead now shown in the dim moonlight andwhose vile hooves must paw the hellish ooze miles below, I shrieked and shriekedlest the hidden face rise above the waters, and lest the hidden eyes look at meafter the slinking away of that leering and treacherous yellow moon.And to escape this relentless thing I plunged gladly and unhesitantly intothe stinking shallows where amidst weedy walls and sunken streets fat sea-wormsfeast upon the world's dead.

---

You may also enjoy reading our collection of Other-Worldly Short-Short Stories.

---