The Whisperer in Darkness

Vermont floods of November 3, 1927. I was then, as

For the things in the chair, perfect to the last, subtle detail of microscopic resemblance - or identity - were the face and hands of Henry Wentworth Akeley.

Astronomers, with a hideous appropriateness they little suspect, have named this thing "Pluto." I feel, beyond question, that it is nothing less than nighted Yuggoth - and I shiver when I try to figure out the real reason why its monstrous denizens wish it to be known in this way at this especial time.

the sick, motionless whisperer in the dark

He has been one of us for years - I suppose you recognised his voice as one of those on the record Mr. Akeley sent you.

To this day I do not know why I obeyed those whispers so slavishly, or whether I thought Akeley was mad or sane.

With Akeley’s permission I lighted a small oil lamp, turned it low, and set it on a distant bookcase beside the ghostly bust of Milton; but afterward I was sorry I had done so, for it made my host’s strained, immobile face and listless hands look damnably abnormal and corpselike.

It was shocking to have the foulest nightmares of secret myth cleared up in concrete terms whose stark, morbid hatefulness exceeded the boldest hints of ancient and mediaeval mystics.

It is only to us that it would seem so.

But the terror was stronger than the reassurance.