H.P. Lovecraft. The Tree
The Tree
by H. P. Lovecraft
Written 1920
Published October 1921 in The Tryout, Vol. 7, No. 7, p. 3-10.
On a verdant slope of Mount Maenalus, in Arcadia, there stands an olive
grove about the ruins of a villa. Close by is a tomb, once beautiful with
the sublimest sculptures, but now fallen into as great decay as the house.
At one end of that tomb, its curious roots displacing the time-stained
blocks of Panhellic marble, grows an unnaturally large olive tree of oddly
repellent shape; so like to some grotesque man, or death-distorted body of
a man, that the country folk fear to pass it at night when the moon shines
faintly through the crooked boughs. Mount Maenalus is a chosen haunt of
dreaded Pan, whose queer companions are many, and simple swains believe
that the tree must have some hideous kinship to these weird Panisci; but
an old bee-keeper who lives in the neighboring cottage told me a different
story.
Many years ago, when the hillside villa was new and resplendent, there
dwelt within it the two sculptors Kalos and Musides. From Lydia to
Neapolis the beauty of their work was praised, and none dared say that the
one excelled the other in skill. The Hermes of Kalos stood in a marble
shrine in Corinth, and the Pallas of Musides surmounted a pillar in Athens
near the Parthenon. All men paid homage to Kalos and Musides, and
marvelled that no shadow of artistic jealousy cooled the warmth of their
brotherly friendship.
But though Kalos and Musides dwelt in unbroken harmony, their natures were
not alike. Whilst Musides revelled by night amidst the urban gaieties of
Tegea, Saios would remain at home; stealing away from the sight of his
slaves into the cool recesses of the olive grove. There he would meditate
upon the visions that filled his mind, and there devise the forms of
beauty which later became immortal in breathing marble. Idle folk, indeed,
said that Kalos conversed with the spirits of the grove, and that his
statues were but images of the fauns and dryads he met there for he
patterned his work after no living model.
So famous were Kalos and Musides, that none wondered when the Tyrant of
Syracuse sent to them deputies to speak of the costly statue of Tyche
which he had planned for his city. Of great size and cunning workmanship
must the statue be, for it was to form a wonder of nations and a goal of
travellers. Exalted beyond thought would be he whose work should gain
acceptance, and for this honor Kalos and Musides were invited to compete.
Their brotherly love was well known, and the crafty Tyrant surmised that
each, instead of concealing his work from the other, would offer aid and
advice; this charity producing two images of unheard of beauty, the
lovelier of which would eclipse even the dreams of poets.
With joy the sculptors hailed the Tyrant's offer, so that in the days that
followed their slaves heard the ceaseless blows of chisels. Not from each
other did Kalos and Musides conceal their work, but the sight was for them
alone. Saving theirs, no eyes beheld the two divine figures released by
skillful blows from the rough blocks that had imprisoned them since the
world began.
At night, as of yore, Musides sought the banquet halls of Tegea whilst
Kalos wandered alone in the olive Grove. But as time passed, men observed
a want of gaiety in the once sparkling Musides. It was strange, they said
amongst themselves that depression should thus seize one with so great a
chance to win art's loftiest reward. Many months passed yet in the sour
face of Musides came nothing of the sharp expectancy which the situation
should arouse.
Then one day Musides spoke of the illness of Kalos, after which none
marvelled again at his sadness, since the sculptors' attachment was known
to be deep and sacred. Subsequently many went to visit Kalos, and indeed
noticed the pallor of his face; but there was about him a happy serenity
which made his glance more magical than the glance of Musides who was
clearly distracted with anxiety and who pushed aside all the slaves in his
eagerness to feed and wait upon his friend with his own hands. Hidden
behind heavy curtains stood the two unfinished figures of Tyche, little
touched of late by the sick man and his faithful attendant.
As Kalos grew inexplicably weaker and weaker despite the ministrations of
puzzled physicians and of his assiduous friend, he desired to be carried
often to the grove which he so loved. There he would ask to be left alone,
as if wishing to speak with unseen things. Musides ever granted his
requests, though his eyes filled with visible tears at the thought that
Kalos should care more for the fauns and the dryads than for him. At last
the end drew near, and Kalos discoursed of things beyond this life.
Musides, weeping, promised him a sepulchre more lovely than the tomb of
Mausolus; but Kalos bade him speak no more of marble glories. Only one
wish now haunted the mind of the dying man; that twigs from certain olive
trees in the grove be buried by his resting place-close to his head. And
one night, sitting alone in the darkness of the olive grove, Kalos died.
Beautiful beyond words was the marble sepulchre which stricken Musides
carved for his beloved friend. None but Kalos himself could have fashioned
such basreliefs, wherein were displayed all the splendours of Elysium. Nor
did Musides fail to bury close to Kalos' head the olive twigs from the
grove.
As the first violence of Musides' grief gave place to resignation, he
labored with diligence upon his figure of Tyche. All honour was now his,
since the Tyrant of Syracuse would have the work of none save him or
Kalos. His task proved a vent for his emotion and he toiled more steadily
each day, shunning the gaieties he once had relished. Meanwhile his
evenings were spent beside the tomb of his friend, where a young olive
tree had sprung up near the sleeper's head. So swift was the growth of
this tree, and so strange was its form, that all who beheld it exclaimed
in surprise; and Musides seemed at once fascinated and repelled.
Three years after the death of Kalos, Musides despatched a messenger to
the Tyrant, and it was whispered in the agora at Tegea that the mighty
statue was finished. By this time the tree by the tomb had attained
amazing proportions, exceeding all other trees of its kind, and sending
out a singularly heavy branch above the apartment in which Musides
labored. As many visitors came to view the prodigious tree, as to admire
the art of the sculptor, so that Musides was seldom alone. But he did not
mind his multitude of guests; indeed, he seemed to dread being alone now
that his absorbing work was done. The bleak mountain wind, sighing through
the olive grove and the tomb-tree, had an uncanny way of forming vaguely
articulate sounds.
The sky was dark on the evening that the Tyrant's emissaries came to
Tegea. It was definitely known that they had come to bear away the great
image of Tyche and bring eternal honour to Musides, so their reception by
the proxenoi was of great warmth. As the night wore on a violent storm of
wind broke over the crest of Maenalus, and the men from far Syracuse were
glad that they rested snugly in the town. They talked of their illustrious
Tyrant, and of the splendour of his capital and exulted in the glory of
the statue which Musides had wrought for him. And then the men of Tegea
spoke of the goodness of Musides, and of his heavy grief for his friend
and how not even the coming laurels of art could console him in the
absence of Kalos, who might have worn those laurels instead. Of the tree
which grew by the tomb, near the head of Kalos, they also spoke. The wind
shrieked more horribly, and both the Syracusans and the Arcadians prayed
to Aiolos.
In the sunshine of the morning the proxenoi led the Tyrant's messengers up
the slope to the abode of the sculptor, but the night wind had done
strange things. Slaves' cries ascended from a scene of desolation, and no
more amidst the olive grove rose the gleaming colonnades of that vast hall
wherein Musides had dreamed and toiled. Lone and shaken mourned the humble
courts and the lower walls, for upon the sumptuous greater peri-style had
fallen squarely the heavy overhanging bough of the strange new tree,
reducing the stately poem in marble with odd completeness to a mound of
unsightly ruins. Strangers and Tegeans stood aghast, looking from the
wreckage to the great, sinister tree whose aspect was so weirdly human and
whose roots reached so queerly into the sculptured sepulchre of Kalos. And
their fear and dismay increased when they searched the fallen apartment,
for of the gentle Musides, and of the marvellously fashioned image of
Tyche, no trace could be discovered. Amidst such stupendous ruin only
chaos dwelt, and the representatives of two cities left disappointed;
Syracusans that they had no statue to bear home, Tegeans that they had no
artist to crown. However, the Syracusans obtained after a while a very
splendid statue in Athens, and the Tegeans consoled themselves by erecting
in the agora a marble temple commemorating the gifts, virtues, and
brotherly piety of Musides.
But the olive grove still stands, as does the tree growing out of the tomb
of Kalos, and the old bee-keeper told me that sometimes the boughs whisper
to one another in the night wind, saying over and over again. "Oida! Oida!
-I know! I know!"