The Alchemist by H.P. Lovecraft
The Alchemist
by H.P. Lovecraft
1908 
High up, crowning the grassy summit of a swelling mount whose sides are wooded 
near the base with the gnarled trees of the primeval forest stands the old 
chateau of my ancestors. For centuries its lofty battlements have frowned down 
upon the wild and rugged countryside about, serving as a home and stronghold for 
the proud house whose honored line is older even than the moss-grown castle 
walls. These ancient turrets, stained by the storms of generations and crumbling 
under the slow yet mighty pressure of time, formed in the ages of feudalism one 
of the most dreaded and formidable fortresses in all France. From its 
machicolated parapets and mounted battlements Barons, Counts, and even Kings had 
been defied, yet never had its spacious halls resounded to the footsteps of the 
invader. 
But since those glorious years, all is changed. A poverty but little above the 
level of dire want, together with a pride of name that forbids its alleviation 
by the pursuits of commercial life, have prevented the scions of our line from 
maintaining their estates in pristine splendour; and the falling stones of the 
walls, the overgrown vegetation in the parks, the dry and dusty moat, the 
ill-paved courtyards, and toppling towers without, as well as the sagging 
floors, the worm-eaten wainscots, and the faded tapestries within, all tell a 
gloomy tale of fallen grandeur. As the ages passed, first one, then another of 
the four great turrets were left to ruin, until at last but a single tower 
housed 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 of 
day, ninety long years ago. Within these walls and amongst the dark and shadowy 
forests, the wild ravines and grottos of the hillside below, were spent the 
first years of my troubled life. My parents I never knew. My father had been 
killed at the age of thirty-two, a month before I was born, by the fall of a 
stone somehow dislodged from one of the deserted parapets of the castle. And my 
mother having died at my birth, my care and education devolved solely upon one 
remaining servitor, an old and trusted man of considerable intelligence, whose 
name I remember as Pierre. I was an only child and the lack of companionship 
which this fact entailed upon me was augmented by the strange care exercised by 
my aged guardian, in excluding me from the society of the peasant children whose 
abodes were scattered here and there upon the plains that surround the base of 
the hill. At that time, Pierre said that this restriction was imposed upon me 
because 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 the 
dread curse upon our line that were nightly told and magnified by the simple 
tenantry as they conversed in hushed accents in the glow of their cottage 
hearths. 
Thus isolated, and thrown upon my own resources, I spent the hours of my 
childhood in poring over the ancient tomes that filled the shadow-haunted 
library of the chateau, and in roaming without aim or purpose through the 
perpetual dust of the spectral wood that clothes the side of the hill near its 
foot. It was perhaps an effect of such surroundings that my mind early acquired 
a shade of melancholy. Those studies and pursuits which partake of the dark and 
occult in nature most strongly claimed my attention. 
Of my own race I was permitted to learn singularly little, yet what small 
knowledge of it I was able to gain seemed to depress me much. Perhaps it was at 
first only the manifest reluctance of my old preceptor to discuss with me my 
paternal ancestry that gave rise to the terror which I ever felt at the mention 
of my great house, yet as I grew out of childhood, I was able. to piece together 
disconnected fragments of discourse, let slip from the unwilling tongue which 
had begun to falter in approaching senility, that had a sort of relation to a 
certain circumstance which I had always deemed strange, but which now became 
dimly terrible. The circumstance to which I allude is the early age at which all 
the Counts of my line had met their end. Whilst I had hitherto considered this 
but a natural attribute of a family of short-lived men, I afterward pondered 
long upon these premature deaths, and began to connect them with the wanderings 
of the old man, who often spoke of a curse which for centuries had prevented the 
lives of the holders of my title from much exceeding the span of thirty-two 
years. Upon my twenty-first birthday, the aged Pierre gave to me a family 
document which he said had for many generations been handed down from father to 
son, and continued by each possessor. Its contents were of the most startling 
nature, 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 have 
dismissed with scorn the incredible narrative unfolded before my eyes. 
The paper carried me back to the days of the thirteenth century, when the old 
castle in which I sat had been a feared and impregnable fortress. It told of a 
certain ancient man who had once dwelled on our estates, a person of no small 
accomplishments, though little above the rank of peasant, by name, Michel, 
usually designated by the surname of Mauvais, the Evil, on account of his 
sinister reputation. He had studied beyond the custom of his kind, seeking such 
things as the Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Eternal Life, and was reputed 
wise in the terrible secrets of Black Magic and Alchemy. Michel Mauvais had one 
son, named Charles, a youth as proficient as himself in the hidden arts, who had 
therefore been called Le Sorcier, or the Wizard. This pair, shunned by all 
honest folk, were suspected of the most hideous practices. Old Michel was said 
to have burnt his wife alive as a sacrifice to the Devil, and the unaccountable 
disappearance of many small peasant children was laid at the dreaded door of 
these two. Yet through the dark natures of the father and son ran one redeeming 
ray 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 the 
vanishment of young Godfrey, son to Henri, the Count. A searching party, headed 
by the frantic father, invaded the cottage of the sorcerers and there came upon 
old Michel Mauvais, busy over a huge and violently boiling cauldron. Without 
certain cause, in the ungoverned madness of fury and despair, the Count laid 
hands on the aged wizard, and ere he released his murderous hold, his victim was 
no more. Meanwhile, joyful servants were proclaiming the finding of young 
Godfrey in a distant and unused chamber of the great edifice, telling too late 
that poor Michel had been killed in vain. As the Count and his associates turned 
away from the lowly abode of the alchemist, the form of Charles Le Sorcier 
appeared through the trees. The excited chatter of the menials standing about 
told 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 terrible 
accents the curse that ever afterward haunted the house of C-. 
`May ne'er a noble of they murd'rous line 
Survive to reach a greater age than thine!' 
spake he, when, suddenly leaping backwards into the black woods, he drew from 
his tunic a phial of colourless liquid which he threw into the face of his 
father's slayer as he disappeared behind the inky curtain of the night. The 
Count died without utterance, and was buried the next day, but little more than 
two and thirty years from the hour of his birth. No trace of the assassin could 
be found, though relentless bands of peasants scoured the neighboring woods and 
the meadowland around the hill. 
Thus time and the want of a reminder dulled the memory of the curse in the minds 
of the late Count's family, so that when Godfrey, innocent cause of the whole 
tragedy and now bearing the title, was killed by an arrow whilst hunting at the 
age of thirty-two, there were no thoughts save those of grief at his demise. But 
when, years afterward, the next young Count, Robert by name, was found dead in a 
nearby field of no apparent cause, the peasants told in whispers that their 
seigneur had but lately passed his thirty-second birthday when surprised by 
early death. Louis, son to Robert, was found drowned in the moat at the same 
fateful age, and thus down through the centuries ran the ominous chronicle: 
Henris, Roberts, Antoines, and Armands snatched from happy and virtuous lives 
when 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 certain 
to 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 the 
mysteries of the hidden world of black magic. Isolated as I was, modern science 
had produced no impression upon me, and I laboured as in the Middle Ages, as 
wrapt as had been old Michel and young Charles themselves in the acquisition of 
demonological and alchemical learning. Yet read as I might, in no manner could I 
account for the strange curse upon my line. In unusually rational moments I 
would even go so far as to seek a natural explanation, attributing the early 
deaths of my ancestors to the sinister Charles Le Sorcier and his heirs; yet, 
having found upon careful inquiry that there were no known descendants of the 
alchemist, I would fall back to occult studies, and once more endeavor to find a 
spell, that would release my house from its terrible burden. Upon one thing I 
was absolutely resolved. I should never wed, for, since no other branch of my 
family was in existence, I might thus end the curse with myself. 
As I drew near the age of thirty, old Pierre was called to the land beyond. 
Alone I buried him beneath the stones of the courtyard about which he had loved 
to wander in life. Thus was I left to ponder on myself as the only human 
creature within the great fortress, and in my utter solitude my mind began to 
cease its vain protest against the impending doom, to become almost reconciled 
to the fate which so many of my ancestors had met. Much of my time was now 
occupied in the exploration of the ruined and abandoned halls and towers of the 
old chateau, which in youth fear had caused me to shun, and some of which old 
Pierre had once told me had not been trodden by human foot for over four 
centuries. Strange and awesome were many of the objects I encountered. 
Furniture, covered by the dust of ages and crumbling with the rot of long 
dampness, met my eyes. Cobwebs in a profusion never before seen by me were spun 
everywhere, and huge bats flapped their bony and uncanny wings on all sides of 
the otherwise untenanted gloom. 
Of my exact age, even down to days and hours, I kept a most careful record, for 
each movement of the pendulum of the massive clock in the library told off so 
much of my doomed existence. At length I approached that time which I had so 
long viewed with apprehension. Since most of my ancestors had been seized some 
little while before they reached the exact age of Count Henri at his end, I was 
every moment on the watch for the coming of the unknown death. In what strange 
form the curse should overtake me, I knew not; but I was resolved at least that 
it should not find me a cowardly or a passive victim. With new vigour I applied 
myself to my examination of the old chateau and its contents. 
It was upon one of the longest of all my excursions of discovery in the deserted 
portion of the castle, less than a week before that fatal hour which I felt must 
mark the utmost limit of my stay on earth, beyond which I could have not even 
the slightest hope of continuing to draw breath. that I came upon the 
culminating event of my whole life. I had spent the better part of the morning 
in climbing up and down half ruined staircases in one of the most dilapidated of 
the ancient turrets. As the afternoon progressed, I sought the lower levels, 
descending into what appeared to be either a mediaeval place of confinement, or 
a more recently excavated storehouse for gunpowder. As I slowly traversed the 
nitre-encrusted passageway at the foot of the last staircase, the paving became 
very damp, and soon I saw by the light of my flickering torch that a blank, 
water-stained wall impeded my journey. Turning to retrace my steps, my eye fell 
upon a small trapdoor with a ring, which lay directly beneath my foot. Pausing, 
I succeeded with difficulty in raising it, whereupon there was revealed a black 
aperture, exhaling noxious fumes which caused my torch to sputter, and 
disclosing in the unsteady glare the top of a flight of stone steps. 
As soon as the torch which I lowered into the repellent depths burned freely and 
steadily, I commenced my descent. The steps were many, and led to a narrow 
stone-flagged passage which I knew must be far underground. This passage proved 
of great length, and terminated in a massive oaken door, dripping with the 
moisture of the place, and stoutly resisting all my attempts to open it. Ceasing 
after a time my efforts in this direction, I had proceeded back some distance 
toward the steps when there suddenly fell to my experience one of the most 
profound and maddening shocks capable of reception by the human mind. Without 
warning, I heard the heavy door behind me creak slowly open upon its rusted 
hinges. My immediate sensations were incapable of analysis. To be confronted in 
a place as thoroughly deserted as I had deemed the old castle with evidence of 
the presence of man or spirit produced in my brain a horror of the most acute 
description. When at last I turned and faced the seat of the sound, my eyes must 
have started from their orbits at the sight that they beheld. 
There in the ancient Gothic doorway stood a human figure. It was that of a man 
clad in a skull-cap and long mediaeval tunic of dark colour. His long hair and 
flowing beard were of a terrible and intense black hue, and of incredible 
profusion. His forehead, high beyond the usual dimensions; his cheeks, 
deep-sunken and heavily lined with wrinkles; and his hands, long, claw-like, and 
gnarled, were of such a deadly marble-like whiteness as I have never elsewhere 
seen in man. His figure, lean to the proportions of a skeleton, was strangely 
bent and almost lost within the voluminous folds of his peculiar garment. But 
strangest of all were his eyes, twin caves of abysmal blackness, profound in 
expression of understanding, yet inhuman in degree of wickedness. These were now 
fixed upon me, piercing my soul with their hatred, and rooting me to the spot 
whereon I stood. 
At last the figure spoke in a rumbling voice that chilled me through with its 
dull hollowness and latent malevolence. The language in which the discourse was 
clothed was that debased form of Latin in use amongst the more learned men of 
the Middle Ages, and made familiar to me by my prolonged researches into the 
works of the old alchemists and demonologists. The apparition spoke of the curse 
which had hovered over my house, told me of my coming end, dwelt on the wrong 
perpetrated by my ancestor against old Michel Mauvais, and gloated over the 
revenge of Charles Le Sorcier. He told how young Charles has escaped into the 
night, returning in after years to kill Godfrey the heir with an arrow just as 
he approached the age which had been his father's at his assassination; how he 
had secretly returned to the estate and established himself, unknown, in the 
even then deserted subterranean chamber whose doorway now framed the hideous 
narrator, how he had seized Robert, son of Godfrey, in a field, forced poison 
down his throat, and left him to die at the age of thirty-two, thus maintaing 
the foul provisions of his vengeful curse. At this point I was left to imagine 
the solution of the greatest mystery of all, how the curse had been fulfilled 
since that time when Charles Le Sorcier must in the course of nature have died, 
for the man digressed into an account of the deep alchemical studies of the two 
wizards, father and son, speaking most particularly of the researches of Charles 
Le Sorcier concerning the elixir which should grant to him who partook of it 
eternal life and youth. 
His enthusiasm had seemed for the moment to remove from his terrible eyes the 
black malevolence that had first so haunted me, but suddenly the fiendish glare 
returned and, with a shocking sound like the hissing of a serpent, the stranger 
raised a glass phial with the evident intent of ending my life as had Charles Le 
Sorcier, six hundred years before, ended that of my ancestor. Prompted by some 
preserving instinct of self-defense, I broke through the spell that had hitherto 
held me immovable, and flung my now dying torch at the creature who menaced my 
existence. I heard the phial break harmlessly against the stones of the passage 
as the tunic of the strange man caught fire and lit the horrid scene with a 
ghastly radiance. The shriek of fright and impotent malice emitted by the 
would-be assassin proved too much for my already shaken nerves, and I fell prone 
upon the slimy floor in a total faint. 
When at last my senses returned, all was frightfully dark, and my mind, 
remembering what had occurred, shrank from the idea of beholding any more; yet 
curiosity over-mastered all. Who, I asked myself, was this man of evil, and how 
came he within the castle walls? Why should he seek to avenge the death of 
Michel Mauvais, and how bad the curse been carried on through all the long 
centuries since the time of Charles Le Sorcier? The dread of years was lifted 
from my shoulder, for I knew that he whom I had felled was the source of all my 
danger from the curse; and now that I was free, I burned with the desire to 
learn more of the sinister thing which had haunted my line for centuries, and 
made of my own youth one long-continued nightmare. Determined upon further 
exploration, I felt in my pockets for flint and steel, and lit the unused torch 
which I had with me. 
First of all, new light revealed the distorted and blackened form of the 
mysterious stranger. The hideous eyes were now closed. Disliking the sight, I 
turned away and entered the chamber beyond the Gothic door. Here I found what 
seemed much like an alchemist's laboratory. In one corner was an immense pile of 
shining yellow metal that sparkled gorgeously in the light of the torch. It may 
have been gold, but I did not pause to examine it, for I was strangely affected 
by that which I had undergone. At the farther end of the apartment was an 
opening leading out into one of the many wild ravines of the dark hillside 
forest. Filled with wonder, yet now realizing how the man had obtained access to 
the chauteau, I proceeded to return. I had intended to pass by the remains of 
the stranger with averted face but, as I approached the body, I seemed to hear 
emanating from it a faint sound,. as though life were not yet wholly extinct. 
Aghast, I turned to examine the charred and shrivelled figure on the floor. 
Then all at once the horrible eyes, blacker even than the seared face in which 
they were set, opened wide with an expression which I was unable to interpret. 
The cracked lips tried to frame words which I could not well understand. Once I 
caught the name of Charles Le Sorcier, and again I fancied that the words 
`years' and `curse' issued from the twisted mouth. Still I was at a loss to 
gather the purport of his disconnnected speech. At my evident ignorance of his 
meaning, the pitchy eyes once more flashed malevolently at me, until, helpless 
as I saw my opponent to be, I trembled as I watched him. 
Suddenly the wretch, animated with his last burst of strength, raised his 
piteous head from the damp and sunken pavement. Then, as I remained, paralyzed 
with fear, he found his voice and in his dying breath screamed forth those words 
which have ever afterward haunted my days and nights. `Fool!' he shrieked, `Can 
you not guess my secret? Have you no brain whereby you may recognize the will 
which has through six long centuries fulfilled the dreadful curse upon the 
house? Have I not told you of the great elixir of eternal life? Know you not how 
the secret of Alchemy was solved? I tell you, it is I! I! I! that have lived for 
six hundred years to maintain my revenge, for I am Charles Le Sorcier!' 




© 1998-1999 William Johns
Last modified: 12/18/1999 18:42:49
