H.P. Lovecraft. The Temple
The Temple
by H. P. Lovecraft
Written 1920
Published September 1925 in Weird Tales, Vol. 6, No. 3, p. 329-36, 429-31.
Manuscript Found On The Coast Of Yucatan
On August20, 1917, I, Karl Heinrich, Graf von Altberg-Ehrenstein,
Lieutenant-Commander in the Imperial German Navy and in charge of the
submarine U-29, deposit this bottle and record in the Atlantic Ocean at a
point to me unknown but probably about N. Latitude 20 degrees, W.
Longitude 35 degrees, where my ship lies disabled on the ocean floor. I do
so because of my desire to set certain unusual facts before the public; a
thing I shall not in all probability survive to accomplish in person,
since the circumstances surrounding me are as menacing as they are
extraordinary, and involve not only the hopeless crippling of the U-29,
but the impairment of my iron German will in a manner most disastrous.
On the afternoon of June 18, as reported by wireless to the U-61, bound
for Kiel, we torpedoed the British freighter Victory, New York to
Liverpool, in N. Latitude 45 degrees 16 minutes, W. Longitude 28 degrees
34 minutes; permitting the crew to leave in boats in order to obtain a
good cinema view for the admiralty records. The ship sank quite
picturesquely, bow first, the stem rising high out of the water whilst the
hull shot down perpendicularly to the bottom of the sea. Our camera missed
nothing, and I regret that so fine a reel of film should never reach
Berlin. After that we sank the lifeboats with our guns and submerged.
When we rose to the surface about sunset, a seaman's body was found on the
deck, hands gripping the railing in curious fashion. The poor fellow was
young, rather dark, and very handsome; probably an Italian or Greek, and
undoubtedly of the Victory's crew. He had evidently sought refuge on the
very ship which had been forced to destroy his own - one more victim of
the unjust war of aggression which the English pig-dogs are waging upon
the Fatherland. Our men searched him for souvenirs, and found in his coat
pocket a very odd bit of ivory carved to represent a youth's head crowned
with laurel. My fellow-officer, Lieutenant Kienze, believed that the thing
was of great age and artistic value, so took it from the men for himself.
How it had ever come into the possession of a common sailor neither he nor
I could imagine.
As the dead man was thrown overboard there occurred two incidents which
created much disturbance amongst the crew. The fellow's eyes had been
closed; but in the dragging of his body to the rail they were jarred open,
and many seemed to entertain a queer delusion that they gazed steadily and
mockingly at Schmidt and Zimmer, who were bent over the corpse. The
Boatswain Muller, an elderly man who would have known better had he not
been a superstitious Alsatian swine, became so excited by this impression
that he watched the body in the water; and swore that after it sank a
little it drew its limbs into a swiinming position and sped away to the
south under the waves. Kienze and I did not like these displays of peasant
ignorance, and severely reprimanded the men, particularly Muller.
The next day a very troublesome situation was created by the indisposition
of some of the crew. They were evidently suffering from the nervous strain
of our long voyage, and had had bad dreams. Several seemed quite dazed and
stupid; and after satisfying myself that they were not feigning their
weakness, I excused them from their duties. The sea was rather rough, so
we descended to a depth where the waves were less troublesome. Here we
were comparatively calm, despite a somewhat puzzling southward current
which we could not identify from our oceanographic charts. The moans of
the sick men were decidedly annoying; but since they did not appear to
demoralize the rest of the crew, we did not resort to extreme measures. It
was our plan to remain where we were and intercept the liner Dacia,
mentioned in information from agents in New York.
In the early evening we rose to the surface, and found the sea less heavy.
The smoke of a battleship was on the northern horizon, but our distance
and ability to submerge made us safe. What worried us more was the talk of
Boatswain Muller, which grew wilder as night came on. He was in a
detestably childish state, and babbled of some illusion of dead bodies
drifting past the undersea portholes; bodies which looked at him
intensely, and which he recognized in spite of bloating as having seen
dying during some of our victorious German exploits. And he said that the
young man we had found and tossed overboard was their leader. This was
very gruesome and abnormal, so we confined Muller in irons and had him
soundly whipped. The men were not pleased at his punishment, but
discipline was necessary. We also denied the request of a delegation
headed by Seaman Zimmer, that the curious carved ivory head be cast into
the sea.
On June 20, Seaman Bohin and Schmidt, who had been ill the day before,
became violently insane. I regretted that no physician was included in our
complement of officers, since German lives are precious; but the constant
ravings of the two concerning a terrible curse were most subversive of
discipline, so drastic steps were taken. The crew accepted the event in a
sullen fashion, but it seemed to quiet Muller; who thereafter gave us no
trouble. In the evening we released him, and he went about his duties
silently.
In the week that followed we were all very nervous, watching for the
Dacia. The tension was aggravated by the disappearance of Muller and
Zimmer, who undoubtedly committed suicide as a result of the fears which
had seemed to harass them, though they were not observed in the act of
jumping overboard. I was rather glad to be rid of Muller, for even his
silence had unfavorably affected the crew. Everyone seemed inclined to be
silent now, as though holding a secret fear. Many were ill, but none made
a disturbance. Lieutenant Kienze chafed under the strain, and was annoyed
by the merest trifle - such as the school of dolphins which gathered about
the U-29 in increasing numbers, and the growing intensity of that
southward current which was not on our chart.
It at length became apparent that we had missed the Dacia altogether. Such
failures are not uncommon, and we were more pleased than disappointed,
since our return to Wilhelmshaven was now in order. At noon June 28 we
turned northeastward, and despite some rather comical entanglements with
the unusual masses of dolphins, were soon under way.
The explosion in the engine room at 2 A.M. was wholly a surprise. No
defect in the machinery or carelessness in the men had been noticed, yet
without warning the ship was racked from end to end with a colossal shock.
Lieutenant Kienze hurried to the engine room, finding the fuel-tank and
most of the mechanism shattered, and Engineers Raabe and Schneider
instantly killed. Our situation had suddenly become grave indeed; for
though the chemical air regenerators were intact, and though we could use
the devices for raising and submerging the ship and opening the hatches as
long as compressed air and storage batteries might hold out, we were
powerless to propel or guide the submarine. To seek rescue in the
life-boats would be to deliver ourselves into the hands of enemies
unreasonably embittered against our great German nation, and our wireless
had failed ever since the Victory affair to put us in touch with a fellow
U-boat of the Imperial Navy.
From the hour of the accident till July 2 we drifted constantly to the
south, almost without plans and encountering no vessel. Dolphins still
encircled the U-29, a somewhat remarkable circumstance considering the
distance we had covered. On the morning of July 2 we sighted a warship
flying American colors, and the men became very restless in their desire
to surrender. Finally Lieutenant Menze had to shoot a seaman named Traube,
who urged this un-German act with especial violence. This quieted the crew
for the time, and we submerged unseen.
The next afternoon a dense flock of sea-birds appeared from the south, and
the ocean began to heave ominously. Closing our hatches, we awaited
developments until we realized that we must either submerge or be swamped
in the mounting waves. Our air pressure and electricity were diminishing,
and we wished to avoid all unnecessary use of our slender mechanical
resources; but in this case there was no choice. We did not descend far,
and when after several hours the sea was calmer, we decided to return to
the surface. Here, however, a new trouble developed; for the ship failed
to respond to our direction in spite of all that the mechanics could do.
As the men grew more frightened at this undersea imprisonment, some of
them began to mutter again about Lieutenant Kienze's ivory image, but the
sight of an automatic pistol calmed them. We kept the poor devils as busy
as we could, tinkering at the machinery even when we knew it was useless.
Kienze and I usually slept at different times; and it was during my sleep,
about 5 A.M., July 4, that the general mutiny broke loose. The six
remaining pigs of seamen, suspecting that we were lost, had suddenly burst
into a mad fury at our refusal to surrender to the Yankee battleship two
days before, and were in a delirium of cursing and destruction. They
roared like the animals they were, and broke instruments and furniture
indiscriminately; screaming about such nonsense as the curse of the ivory
image and the dark dead youth who looked at them and swam away. Lieutenant
Kienze seemed paralyzed and inefficient, as one might expect of a soft,
womanish Rhinelander. I shot all six men, for it was necessary, and made
sure that none remained alive.
We expelled the bodies through the double hatches and were alone in the
U-29. Kienze seemed very nervous, and drank heavily. It was decided that
we remain alive as long as possible, using the large stock of provisions
and chemical supply of oxygen, none of which had suffered from the crazy
antics of those swine-hound seamen. Our compasses, depth gauges, and other
delicate instruments were ruined; so that henceforth our only reckoning
would be guess work, based on our watches, the calendar, and our apparent
drift as judged by any objects we might spy through the portholes or from
the conning tower. Fortunately we had storage batteries still capable of
long use, both for interior lighting and for the searchlight. We often
cast a beam around the ship, but saw only dolphins, swimming parallel to
our own drifting course. I was scientifically interested in those
dolphins; for though the ordinary Delphinus delphis is a cetacean mammal,
unable to subsist without air, I watched one of the swimmers closely for
two hours, and did not see him alter his submerged condition.
With the passage of time Kienze and I decided that we were still drifting
south, meanwhile sinking deeper and deeper. We noted the marine fauna and
flora, and read much on the subject in the books I had carried with.me for
spare moments. I could not help observing, however, the inferior
scientific knowledge of my companion. His mind was not Prussian, but given
to imaginings and speculations which have no value. The fact of our coming
death affected him curiously, and he would frequently pray in remorse over
the men, women, and children we had sent to the bottom; forgetting that
all things are noble which serve the German state. After a time he became
noticeably unbalanced, gazing for hours at his ivory image and weaving
fanciful stories of the lost and forgotten things under the sea.
Sometimes, as a psychological experiment, I would lead him on in the
wanderings, and listen to his endless poetical quotations and tales of
sunken ships. I was very sorry for him, for I dislike to see a German
suffer; but he was not a good man to die with. For myself I was proud,
knowing how the Fatherland would revere my memory and how my sons would be
taught to be men like me.
On August 9, we espied the ocean floor, and sent a powerful beam from the
searchlight over it. It was a vast undulating plain, mostly covered with
seaweed, and strewn with the shells of small moflusks. Here and there were
slimy objects of puzzling contour, draped with weeds and encrusted with
barnacles, which Kienze declared must be ancient ships lying in their
graves. He was puzzled by one thing, a peak of solid matter, protruding
above the oceanbed nearly four feet at its apex; about two feet thick,
with flat sides and smooth upper surfaces which met at a very obtuse
angle. I called the peak a bit of outcropping rock, but Kienze thought he
saw carvings on it. After a while he began to shudder, and turned away
from the scene. as if frightened; yet could give no explanation save that
he was overcome with the vastness, darkness, remoteness, antiquity, and
mystery of the oceanic abysses. His mind was tired, but I am always a
German, and was quick to notice two things: that the U-29 was standing the
deep-sea pressure splendidly, and that the peculiar dolphins were still
about us, even at a depth where the existence of high organisms is
considered impossible by most naturalists. That I had previously
overestimated our depth, I was sure; but none the less we must still have
been deep enough to make these phenomena remarkable. Our southward speed,
as gauged by the ocean floor, was about as I had estimated from the
organisms passed at higher levels.
It was at 3:15 PM., August 12, that poor Kienze went wholly mad. He had
been in the conning tower using the searchlight when I saw him bound into
the library compartment where I sat reading, and his face at once betrayed
him. I will repeat here what he said, underlining the words he emphasized:
"He is calling! He is calling! I hear him! We must go!" As he spoke he
took his ivory image from the table, pocketed it, and seized my arm in an
effort to drag me up the companionway to the deck. In a moment I
understood that he meant to open the hatch and plunge with me into the
water outside, a vagary of suicidal and homicidal mania for which I was
scarcely prepared. As I hung back and attempted to soothe him he grew more
violent, saying: "Come now - do not wait until later; it is better to
repent and be forgiven than to defy and be condemned." Then I tried the
opposite of the soothing plan, and told him he was mad - pitifully
demented. But he was unmoved, and cried: "If I am mad, it is mercy. May
the gods pity the man who in his callousness can remam sane to the hideous
end! Come and be mad whilst he still calls with mercy!"
This outburst seemed to relieve a pressure in his brain; for as he
finished he grew much milder, asking me to let him depart alone if I would
not accompany him. My course at once became clear. He was a German, but
only a Rhinelander and a commoner; and he was now a potentially dangerous
madman. By complying with his suicidal request I could immediately free
myself from one who was no longer a companion but a menace. I asked him to
give me the ivory image before he went, but this request brought from him
such uncanny laughter that I did not repeat it. Then I asked him if he
wished to leave any keepsake or lock of hair for his family in Germany in
case I should be rescued, but again he gave me that strange laugh. So as
he climbed the ladder I went to the levers and, allowing proper
time-intervals, operated the machinery which sent him to his death. After
I saw that he was no longer in the boat I threw the searchlight around the
water in an effort to obtain a last glimpse of him since I wished to
ascertain whether the water-pressure would flatten him as it theoretically
should, or whether the body would be unaffected, like those extraordinary
dolphins. I did not, however, succeed in finding my late companion, for
the dolphins were massed thickly and obscuringly about the conning tower.
That evening I regretted that I had not taken the ivory image
surreptitiously from poor Kienze's pocket as he left, for the memory of it
fascinated me. I could not forget the youthful, beautiful head with its
leafy crown, though I am not by nature an artist. I was also sorry that I
had no one with whom to converse. Kienze, though not my mental equal, was
much better than no one. I did not sleep well that night, and wondered
exactly when the end would come. Surely, I had little enough chance of
rescue.
The next day I ascended to the conning tower and commenced the customary
searchlight explorations. Northward the view was much the same as it had
been all the four days since we had sighted the bottom, but I perceived
that the drifting of the U-29 was less rapid. As I swung the beam around
to the south, I noticed that the ocean floor ahead fell away in a marked
declivity, and bore curiously regular blocks of stone in certain places,
disposed as if in accordance with definite patterns. The boat did not at
once descend to match the greater ocean depth, so I was soon forced to
adjust the searchlight to cast a sharply downward beam. Owing to the
abruptness of the change a wire was disconnected, which necessitated a
delay of many minutes for repairs; but at length the light streamed on
again, flooding the marine valley below me.
I am not given to emotion of any kind, but my amazement was very great
when I saw what lay revealed in that electrical glow. And yet as one
reared in the best Kultur of Prussia, I should not have been amazed, for
geology and tradition alike tell us of great transpositions in oceanic and
continental areas. What I saw was an extended and elaborate array of
ruined edifices; all of magnificent though unclassified architecture, and
in various stages of preservation. Most appeared to be of marble, gleaming
whitely in the rays of the searchlight, and the general plan was of a
large city at the bottom of a narrow valley, with numerous isolated
temples and villas on the steep slopes above. Roofs were fallen and
columns were broken, but there still remained an air of immemorially
ancient splendor which nothing could efface.
Confronted at last with the Atlantis I had formerly deemed largely a myth,
I was the most eager of explorers. At the bottom of that valley a river
once had flowed; for as I examined the scene more closely I beheld the
remains of stone and marble bridges and sea-walls, and terraces and
embankments once verdant and beautiful. In my enthusiasm I became nearly
as idiotic and sentimental as poor Kienze, and was very tardy in noticing
that the southward current had ceased at last, allowing the U-29 to settle
slowly down upon the sunken city as an airplane settles upon a town of the
upper earth. I was slow, to, in realizing that the school of unusual
dolphins had vanished.
In about two hours the boat rested in a paved plaza close to the rocky
wall of the valley. On one side I could view the entire city as it sloped
from the plaza down to the old river-bank; on the other side, in startling
proximity, I was confronted by the richly ornate and perfectly preserved
facade of a great building, evidently a temple, hollowed from the solid
rock. Of the original workmanship of this titanic thing I can only make
conjectures. The facade, of immense magnitude, apparently covers a
continuous hollow recess; for its windows are many and widely distributed.
In the center yawns a great open door, reached by an impressive flight of
steps, and surrounded by exquisite carvings like the figures of Bacchanals
in relief. Foremost of all are the great columns and frieze, both
decorated with sculptures of inexpressible beauty; obviously portraying
idealized pastoral scenes and processions of priests and priestesses
bearing strange ceremonial devices in adoration of a radiant god. The art
is of the most phenomenal perfection, largely Hellenic in idea, yet
strangely individual. It imparts an impression of terrible antiquity, as
though it were the remotest rather than the immediate ancestor of Greek
art. Nor can I doubt that every detail of this massive product was
fashioned from the virgin hillside rock of our planet. It is palpably a
part of the valley wall, though how the vast interior was ever excavated I
cannot imagine. Perhaps a cavern or series of caverns furnished the
nucleus. Neither age nor submersion has corroded the pristine grandeur of
this awful fane - for fane indeed it must be - and today after thousands
of years it rests untarnished and inviolate in the endless night and
silence of an ocean-chasm.
I cannot reckon the number of hours I spent in gazing at the sunken city
with its buildings, arches, statues, and bridges, and the colossal temple
with its beauty and mystery. Though I knew that death was near, my
curiosity was consuming; and I threw the searchlight beam about in eager
quest. The shaft of light permitted me to learn many details, but refused
to show anything within the gaping door of the rock-hewn temple; and after
a time I turned off the current, conscious of the need of conserving
power. The rays were now perceptibly dimmer than they had been during the
weeks of drifting. And as if sharpened by the coming deprivation of light,
my desire to explore the watery secrets grew. I, a German, should be the
first to tread those eon-forgotten ways!
I produced and examined a deep-sea diving suit of jointed metal, and
experimented with the portable light and air regenerator. Though I should
have trouble in managing the double hatches alone, I believed I could
overcome all obstacles with my scientific skill and actually walk about
the dead city in person.
On August 16 I effected an exit from the U-29, and laboriously made my way
through the ruined and mud-choked streets to the ancient river. I found no
skeletons or other human remains, but gleaned a wealth of archeological
lore from sculptures and coins. Of this I cannot now speak save to utter
my awe at a culture in the full noon of glory when cave-dwellers roamed
Europe and the Nile flowed unwatched to the sea. Others, guided by this
manuscript if it shall ever be found, must unfold the mysteries at which I
can only hint. I returned to the boat as my electric batteries grew
feeble, resolved to explore the rock temple on the following day.
On the 17th, as my impulse to search out the mystery of the temple waxed
still more insistent, a great disappointment befell me; for I found that
the materials needed to replenish the portable light had perished in the
mutiny of those pigs in July. My rage was unbounded, yet my German sense
forbade me to venture unprepared into an utterly black interior which
might prove the lair of some indescribable marine monster or a labyrinth
of passages from whose windings I could never extricate myself. All I
could do was to turn on the waning searchlight of the U-29, and with its
aid walk up the temple steps and study the exterior carvings. The shaft of
light entered the door at an upward angle, and I peered in to see if I
could glimpse anything, but all in vain. Not even the roof was visible;
and though I took a step or two inside after testing the floor with a
staff, I dared not go farther. Moreover, for the first time in my life I
experienced the emotion of dread. I began to realize how some of poor
Kienze's moods had arisen, for as the temple drew me more and more, I
feared its aqueous abysses with a blind and mounting terror. Returning to
the submarine, I turned off the lights and sat thinking in the dark.
Electricity must now be saved for emergencies.
Saturday the 18th I spent in total darkness, tormented by thoughts and
memories that threatened to overcome my German will. Kienze bad gone mad
and perished before reaching this sinster remnant of a past unwholesomely
remote, and had advised me to go with him. Was, indeed, Fate preserving my
reason only to draw me irresistibly to an end more horrible and
unthinkable than any man has dreamed of? Clearly, my nerves were sorely
taxed, and I must cast off these impressions of weaker men.
I could not sleep Saturday night, and turned on the lights regardless of
the future. It was annoying that the electricity should not last out the
air and provisions. I revived my thoughts of euthanasia, and examined my
automatic pistol. Toward morning I must have dropped asleep with the
lights on, for I awoke in darkness yesterday afternoon to find the
batteries dead. I struck several matches in succession, and desperately
regretted the improvidence which had caused us long ago to use up the few
candles we carried.
After the fading of the last match I dared to waste, I sat very quietly
without a light. As I considered the inevitable end my mind ran over
preceding events, and developed a hitherto dormant impression which would
have caused a weaker and more superstitious man to shudder. The head of
the radiant god in the sculptures on the rock temple is the same as that
carven bit of ivory which the dead sailor brought from the sea and which
poor Kienze carried back into the sea.
I was a little dazed by this coincidence, but did not become terrified. It
is only the inferior thinker who hastens to explain the singular and the
complex by the primitive shortcut of supernaturalism. The coincidence was
strange, but I was too sound a reasoner to connect circumstances which
admit of no logical connection, or to associate in any uncanny fashion the
disastrous events which had led from the Victory affair to my present
plight. Feeling the need of more rest, I took a sedative and secured some
more sleep. My nervous condition was reflected in my dreams, for I seemed
to hear the cries of drowning persons, and to see dead faces pressing
against the portholes of the boat. And among the dead faces was the
living, mocking face of the youth with the ivory image.
I must be careful how I record my awakening today, for I am unstrung, and
much hallucination is necessarily mixed with fact. Psychologically my case
is most interesting, and I regret that it cannot be observed
scientifically by a competent German authority. Upon opening my eyes my
first sensation was an overmastering desire to visit the rock temple; a
desire which grew every instant, yet which I automatically sought to
resist through some emotion of fear which operated in the reverse
direction. Next there came to me the impression of light amidst the
darkness of dead batteries, and I seemed to see a sort of phosphorescent
glow in the water through the porthole which opened toward the temple.
This aroused my curiosity, for I knew of no deep-sea organism capable of
emitting such luminosity.
But before I could investigate there came a third impression which because
of its irrationality caused me to doubt the objectivity of anything my
senses might record. It was an aural delusion; a sensation of rhythmic,
melodic sound as of some wild yet beautiful chant or choral hymn, coming
from the outside through the absolutely sound-proof hull of the U-29.
Convinced of my psychological and nervous abnormallty, I lighted some
matches and poured a stiff dose of sodium bromide solution, which seemed
to calm me to the extent of dispelling the illusion of sound. But the
phosphorescence remained, and I had difficulty in repressing a childish
impulse to go to the porthole and seek its source. It was horribly
realistic, and I could soon distinguish by its aid the familiar objects
around me, as well as the empty sodium bromide glass of which I had had no
former visual impression in its present location. This last circumstance
made me ponder, and I crossed the room and touched the glass. It was
indeed in the place where I had seemed to see it. Now I knew that the
light was either real or part of an hallucination so fixed and consistent
that I could not hope to dispel it, so abandoning all resistance I
ascended to the conning tower to look for the luminous agency. Might it
not actually be another U-boat, offering possibilities of rescue?
It is well that the reader accept nothing which follows as objective
truth, for since the events transcend natural law, they are necessily the
subjective and unreal creations of my overtaxed mind. When I attained the
conning tower I found the sea in general far less luminous than I had
expected. There was no animal or vegetable phosphorescence about, and the
city that sloped down to the river was invisible in blackness. What I did
see was not spectacular, not grotesque or terrifying, yet it removed my
last vestige of trust in my consciousness. For the door and windows of the
undersea temple hewn from the rocky hill were vividly aglow with a
flickering radiance, as from a mighty altar-flame far within.
Later incidents are chaotic. As I stared at the uncannily lighted door and
windows, I became subject to the most extravagant visions - visions so
extravagant that I cannot even relate them. I fancied that I discerned
objects in the temple; objects both stationary and moving; and seemed to
hear again the unreal chant that had floated to me when first I awaked.
And over all rose thoughts and fears which centered in the youth from the
sea and the ivory image whose carving was duplicated on the frieze and
columns of the temple before me. I thought of poor Kienze, and wondered
where his body rested with the image he had carried back into the sea. He
had warned me of something, and I had not heeded - but he was a
soft-headed Rhinelander who went mad at troubles a Prussian could bear
with ease.
The rest is very simple. My impulse to visit and enter the temple has now
become an inexplicable and imperious command which ultimately cannot be
denied. My own German will no longer controls my acts, and volition is
henceforward possible only in minor matters. Such madness it was which
drove Kienze to his death, bare-headed and unprotected in the ocean; but I
am a Prussian and a man of sense, and will use to the last what little
will I have. When first I saw that I must go, I prepared my diving suit,
helmet, and air regenerator for instant donning, and immediately commenced
to write this hurried chronicle in the hope that it may some day reach the
world. I shall seal the manuscript in a bottle and entrust it to the sea
as I leave the U-29 for ever.
I have no fear, not even from the prophecies of the madman Kienze. What I
have seen cannot be true, and I know that this madness of my own will at
most lead only to suffocation when my air is gone. The light in the temple
is a sheer delusion, and I shall die calmly like a German, in the black
and forgotten depths. This demoniac laughter which I hear as I write comes
only from my own weakening brain. So I will carefully don my suit and walk
boldly up the steps into the primal shrine, that silent secret of
unfathomed waters and uncounted years.