Все жанры Все авторы
The Strange High House in the Mist - H. Lovecraft

The Strange High House in the Mist

Автор

Страниц

10

Год

—

Thomas Olney, a self-proclaimed "profound thinker" from a small village, was embarking on a family trip to the enchanting coastal town of Kingsport, Massachusetts. Intrigued by the whispers that circulated among the locals about a remarkable house perched on a towering cliff, Olney's curiosity was piqued. This mysterious dwelling, shrouded in age and grandeur, held an unparalleled allure, as it seemed to hold secrets unfathomable to the human mind.

Undeterred by the generations-long dread that encased the house, Olney mustered all his courage and embarked on a treacherous journey up the jagged crags. His determination pushed him forward, desperate to uncover the enigma that lay hidden within those ancient walls. Finally, conquering the formidable heights, he found himself standing before the abode, breathing in the salty ocean air tinged with an otherworldly aura.

As the door creaked open, revealing a precipitous drop into the mist-filled abyss, Olney's heart raced. The supernatural energy emanating from within captivated his senses, enveloping him in a cocoon of antiquated wisdom and mystical power. But Olney was not the only one destined to have an encounter with the inexplicable that fateful day.

Inside the house, he came face to face with the enigmatic owner who dwelled amidst the ethereal mist. Time seemed to stand still as they engaged in a conversation that transcended mortal comprehension, an exchange that would forever alter Olney's perception of reality. The knowledge bestowed upon him was both profound and disconcerting, forcing him to question the boundaries of existence itself.

As the sun began to set, Olney reluctantly bid farewell to the spectral dwelling and descended the treacherous cliffside. However, something had changed within him. It was as if, while his physical form returned to Kingsport, a part of his essence lingered behind in the mysterious house on the cliff. Days turned into weeks, and the haunting memories of that encounter continued to possess him, reminding him that he was forever altered by the supernatural forces that had seeped into his soul.

And so, Thomas Olney, forever marked by the ethereal encounter, carried on through life with an unshakable knowledge of the unfathomable realms that existed beyond the reaches of human perception. The people of Kingsport, oblivious to the invisible transformation that had occurred within their visitor, marveled at the newfound depth that seemed to radiate from his being. It was a depth that could only be attributed to the invisible connection he had forged with the house on the cliff, forever binding him to a world unseen by mortal eyes.

Читать бесплатно онлайн The Strange High House in the Mist - H. Lovecraft

The Strange High House in the Mist

In the morning mist comes up from the sea by the cliffs beyond Kingsport. White and feathery it comes from the deep to its brothers the clouds, full of dreams of dank pastures and caves of leviathan. And later, in still summer rains on the steep roofs of poets, the clouds scatter bits of those dreams, that men shall not live without rumour of old, strange secrets, and wonders that planets tell planets alone in the night. When tales fly thick in the grottoes of tritons, and conches in seaweed cities blow wild tunes learned from the Elder Ones, then great eager mists flock to heaven laden with lore, and oceanward eyes on the rocks see only a mystic whiteness, as if the cliff’s rim were the rim of all earth, and the solemn bells of buoys tolled free in the aether of faery.

Now north of archaic Kingsport the crags climb lofty and curious, terrace on terrace, till the northernmost hangs in the sky like a gray frozen wind-cloud. Alone it is, a bleak point jutting in limitless space, for there the coast turns sharp where the great Miskatonic pours out of the plains past Arkham, bringing woodland legends and little quaint memories of New England’s hills. The sea-folk of Kingsport look up at that cliff as other sea-folk look up at the pole – star, and time the night’s watches by the way it hides or shows the Great Bear, Cassiopeia and the Dragon. Among them it is one with the firmament, and truly, it is hidden from them when the mist hides the stars or the sun.

Some of the cliffs they love, as that whose grotesque profile they call Father Neptune, or that whose pillared steps they term “The Causeway”; but this one they fear because it is so near the sky. The Portuguese sailors coming in from a voyage cross themselves when they first see it, and the old Yankees believe it would be a much graver matter than death to climb it, if indeed that were possible. Nevertheless there is an ancient house on that cliff, and at evening men see lights in the small-paned windows.

The ancient house has always been there, and people say One dwells within who talks with the morning mists that come up from the deep, and perhaps sees singular things oceanward at those times when the cliff’s rim becomes the rim of all earth, and solemn buoys toll free in the white aether of faery. This they tell from hearsay, for that forbidding crag is always unvisited, and natives dislike to train telescopes on it. Summer boarders have indeed scanned it with jaunty binoculars, but have never seen more than the gray primeval roof, peaked and shingled, whose eaves come nearly to the gray foundations, and the dim yellow light of the little windows peeping out from under those eaves in the dusk. These summer people do not believe that the same One has lived in the ancient house for hundreds of years, but can not prove their heresy to any real Kingsporter. Even the Terrible Old Man who talks to leaden pendulums in bottles, buys groceries with centuried Spanish gold, and keeps stone idols in the yard of his antediluvian cottage in Water Street can only say these things were the same when his grandfather was a boy, and that must have been inconceivable ages ago, when Belcher or Shirley or Pownall or Bernard was Governor of His Majesty’s Province of the Massachusetts-Bay.

Вам может понравиться: