The Alchemist - H. P. Lovecraft(1), ebook, Temp
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The Alchemist by H.P. LovecraftThe Alchemistby H.P. Lovecraft1908High 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, theill-paved courtyards, and toppling towers without, as well as the saggingfloors, the worm-eaten wainscots, and the faded tapestries within, all tell agloomy tale of fallen grandeur. As the ages passed, first one, then another ofthe four great turrets were left to ruin, until at last but a single towerhoused the sadly 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 tht 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 they murd'rous lineSurvive 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 desc...
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