H.P. Lovecraft. The Thing in the Moonlight
The Thing in the Moonlight
by H. P. Lovecraft and J. Chapman Miske
Written November 24, 1927
The following is based, in places word for word, on a letter Lovecraft
wrote to Donald Wandrei on November 24, 1927. The first three and last
five paragraphs were added by J. Chapman Miske; the remainder is almost
verbatim Lovecraft.
In the letter, Lovecraft reveals that his "dreams occasionally approach'd
the phantastical in character, tho' falling somewhat short of coherence."
Many of his stories were inspired by dreams.
Morgan is not a literary man; in fact he cannot speak English with any
degree of coherency. That is what makes me wonder about the words he
wrote, though others have laughed.
He was alone the evening it happened. Suddenly an unconquerable urge to
write came over him, and taking pen in hand he wrote the following:
My name is Howard Phillips. I live at 66 College Street, in Providence,
Rhode Island. On November 24, 1927--for I know not even what the year
may be now--, I fell asleep and dreamed, since when I have been unable
to awaken.
My dream began in a dank, reed-choked marsh that lay under a gray autumn
sky, with a rugged cliff of lichen-crusted stone rising to the north.
Impelled by some obscure quest, I ascended a rift or cleft in this
beetling precipice, noting as I did so the black mouths of many fearsome
burrows extending from both walls into the depths of the stony plateau.
At several points the passage was roofed over by the choking of the
upper parts of the narrow fissure; these places being exceeding dark,
and forbidding the perception of such burrows as may have existed there.
In one such dark space I felt conscious of a singular accession of
fright, as if some subtle and bodiless emanation from the abyss were
engulfing my spirit; but the blackness was too great for me to perceive
the source of my alarm.
At length I emerged upon a tableland of moss-grown rock and scanty soil,
lit by a faint moonlight which had replaced the expiring orb of day.
Casting my eyes about, I beheld no living object; but was sensible of a
very peculiar stirring far below me, amongst the whispering rushes of
the pestilential swamp I had lately quitted.
After walking for some distance, I encountered the rusty tracks of a
street railway, and the worm-eaten poles which still held the limp and
sagging trolley wire. Following this line, I soon came upon a yellow,
vestibuled car numbered 1852--of a plain, double-trucked type common
from 1900 to 1910. It was untenanted, but evidently ready to start; the
trolley being on the wire and the air-brake now and then throbbing
beneath the floor. I boarded it and looked vainly about for the light
switch--noting as I did so the absence of the controller handle, which
thus implied the brief absence of the motorman. Then I sat down in one
of the cross seats of the vehicle. Presently I heard a swishing in the
sparse grass toward the left, and saw the dark forms of two men looming
up in the moonlight. They had the regulation caps of a railway company,
and I could not doubt but that they were conductor and motorman. Then
one of them sniffed with singular sharpness, and raised his face to howl
to the moon. The other dropped on all fours to run toward the car.
I leaped up at once and raced madly out of that car and across endless
leagues of plateau till exhaustion forced me to stop--doing this not
because the conductor had dropped on all fours, but because the face of
the motorman was a mere white cone tapering to one blood-red-tentacle...
I was aware that I only dreamed, but the very awareness was not
pleasant. Since that fearful night, I have prayed only for awakening--it
has not come!
Instead I have found myself an inhabitant of this terrible dream-world!
That first night gave way to dawn, and I wandered aimlessly over the
lonely swamp-lands. When night came, I still wandered, hoping for
awakening. But suddenly I parted the weeds and saw before me the ancient
railway car--and to one side a cone-faced thing lifted its head and in
the streaming moonlight howled strangely!
It has been the same each day. Night takes me always to that place of
horror. I have tried not moving, with the coming of nightfall, but I
must walk in my slumber, for always I awaken with the thing of dread
howling before me in the pale moonlight, and I turn and flee madly.
God! when will I awaken?
That is what Morgan wrote. I would go to 66 College Street in Providence,
but I fear for what I might find there.
