{"id":19129,"date":"2025-02-02T21:33:49","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T01:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/?p=19129"},"modified":"2025-02-02T21:33:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T01:33:51","slug":"h-p-lovecraft-the-picture-in-the-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/short-stories\/h-p-lovecraft-the-picture-in-the-house\/19129\/","title":{"rendered":"H. P. Lovecraft: The Picture in the House"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis: The Picture in the House<\/strong> is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, published in July 1921 in The National Amateur<\/em>. The story follows a traveler caught in a storm in the New England woods, seeking refuge in an old, isolated house. He meets a strange, disturbing-looking older man who receives him with disturbing hospitality. As they talk, attention is drawn to an old book illustrated with macabre scenes that arouse a sinister fascination in the host. As the storm rages, the atmosphere in the house becomes increasingly oppressive and disturbing.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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\"H.<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Picture in the House<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

H. P. Lovecraft
(Full story)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the catacombs of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries. They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles, and falter down black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteems most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness, and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the hideous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most horrible of all sights are the little unpainted wooden houses remote from travelled ways, usually squatted upon some damp, grassy slope or leaning against some gigantic outcropping of rock. Two hundred years and more they have leaned or squatted there, while the vines have crawled and the trees have swelled and spread. They are almost hidden now in lawless luxuriances of green and guardian shrouds of shadow; but the small-paned windows still stare shockingly, as if blinking through a lethal stupor which wards off madness by dulling the memory of unutterable things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In such houses have dwelt generations of strange people, whose like the world has never seen. Seized with a gloomy and fanatical belief which exiled them from their kind, their ancestors sought the wilderness for freedom. There the scions of a conquering race indeed flourished free from the restrictions of their fellows, but cowered in an appalling slavery to the dismal phantasms of their own minds. Divorced from the enlightenment of civilisation, the strength of these Puritans turned into singular channels; and in their isolation, morbid self-repression, and struggle for life with relentless Nature, there came to them dark furtive traits from the prehistoric depths of their cold Northern heritage. By necessity practical and by philosophy stern, these folk were not beautiful in their sins. Erring as all mortals must, they were forced by their rigid code to seek concealment above all else; so that they came to use less and less taste in what they concealed. Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses in the backwoods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days; and they are not communicative, being loath to shake off the drowsiness which helps them forget. Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses, for they must often dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was to a time-battered edifice of this description that I was driven one afternoon in November, 1896, by a rain of such chilling copiousness that any shelter was preferable to exposure. I had been travelling for some time amongst the people of the Miskatonic Valley in quest of certain genealogical data; and from the remote, devious, and problematical nature of my course, had deemed it convenient to employ a bicycle despite the lateness of the season. Now I found myself upon an apparently abandoned road which I had chosen as the shortest cut to Arkham; overtaken by the storm at a point far from any town, and confronted with no refuge save the antique and repellent wooden building which blinked with bleared windows from between two huge leafless elms near the foot of a rocky hill. Distant though it was from the remnant of a road, the house none the less impressed me unfavourably the very moment I espied it. Honest, wholesome structures do not stare at travellers so slyly and hauntingly, and in my genealogical researches I had encountered legends of a century before which biassed me against places of this kind. Yet the force of the elements was such as to overcome my scruples, and I did not hesitate to wheel my machine up the weedy rise to the closed door which seemed at once so suggestive and secretive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had somehow taken it for granted that the house was abandoned, yet as I approached it I was not so sure; for though the walks were indeed overgrown with weeds, they seemed to retain their nature a little too well to argue complete desertion. Therefore instead of trying the door I knocked, feeling as I did so a trepidation I could scarcely explain. As I waited on the rough, mossy rock which served as a doorstep, I glanced at the neighbouring windows and the panes of the transom above me, and noticed that although old, rattling, and almost opaque with dirt, they were not broken. The building, then, must still be inhabited, despite its isolation and general neglect. However, my rapping evoked no response, so after repeating the summons I tried the rusty latch and found the door unfastened. Inside was a little vestibule with walls from which the plaster was falling, and through the doorway came a faint but peculiarly hateful odour. I entered, carrying my bicycle, and closed the door behind me. Ahead rose a narrow staircase, flanked by a small door probably leading to the cellar, while to the left and right were closed doors leading to rooms on the ground floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaning my cycle against the wall I opened the door at the left, and crossed into a small low-ceiled chamber but dimly lighted by its two dusty windows and furnished in the barest and most primitive possible way. It appeared to be a kind of sitting-room, for it had a table and several chairs, and an immense fireplace above which ticked an antique clock on a mantel. Books and papers were very few, and in the prevailing gloom I could not readily discern the titles. What interested me was the uniform air of archaism as displayed in every visible detail. Most of the houses in this region I had found rich in relics of the past, but here the antiquity was curiously complete; for in all the room I could not discover a single article of definitely post-revolutionary date. Had the furnishings been less humble, the place would have been a collector\u2019s paradise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I surveyed this quaint apartment, I felt an increase in that aversion first excited by the bleak exterior of the house. Just what it was that I feared or loathed, I could by no means define; but something in the whole atmosphere seemed redolent of unhallowed age, of unpleasant crudeness, and of secrets which should be forgotten. I felt disinclined to sit down, and wandered about examining the various articles which I had noticed. The first object of my curiosity was a book of medium size lying upon the table and presenting such an antediluvian aspect that I marvelled at beholding it outside a museum or library. It was bound in leather with metal fittings, and was in an excellent state of preservation; being altogether an unusual sort of volume to encounter in an abode so lowly. When I opened it to the title page my wonder grew even greater, for it proved to be nothing less rare than Pigafetta\u2019s account of the Congo region, written in Latin from the notes of the sailor Lopez and printed at Frankfort in 1598. I had often heard of this work, with its curious illustrations by the brothers De Bry, hence for a moment forgot my uneasiness in my desire to turn the pages before me. The engravings were indeed interesting, drawn wholly from imagination and careless descriptions, and represented negroes with white skins and Caucasian features; nor would I soon have closed the book had not an exceedingly trivial circumstance upset my tired nerves and revived my sensation of disquiet. What annoyed me was merely the persistent way in which the volume tended to fall open of itself at Plate XII, which represented in gruesome detail a butcher\u2019s shop of the cannibal Anziques. I experienced some shame at my susceptibility to so slight a thing, but the drawing nevertheless disturbed me, especially in connexion with some adjacent passages descriptive of Anzique gastronomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had turned to a neighbouring shelf and was examining its meagre literary contents \u2014 an eighteenth-century Bible, a Pilgrim\u2019s Progress<\/em> of like period, illustrated with grotesque woodcuts and printed by the almanack-maker Isaiah Thomas, the rotting bulk of Cotton Mather\u2019s Magnalia Christi Americana,<\/em> and a few other books of evidently equal age \u2014 when my attention was aroused by the unmistakable sound of walking in the room overhead. At first astonished and startled, considering the lack of response to my recent knocking at the door, I immediately afterward concluded that the walker had just awakened from a sound sleep; and listened with less surprise as the footsteps sounded on the creaking stairs. The tread was heavy, yet seemed to contain a curious quality of cautiousness; a quality which I disliked the more because the tread was heavy. When I had entered the room I had shut the door behind me. Now, after a moment of silence during which the walker may have been inspecting my bicycle in the hall, I heard a fumbling at the latch and saw the panelled portal swing open again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the doorway stood a person of such singular appearance that I should have exclaimed aloud but for the restraints of good breeding. Old, white-bearded, and ragged, my host possessed a countenance and physique which inspired equal wonder and respect. His height could not have been less than six feet, and despite a general air of age and poverty he was stout and powerful in proportion. His face, almost hidden by a long beard which grew high on the cheeks, seemed abnormally ruddy and less wrinkled than one might expect; while over a high forehead fell a shock of white hair little thinned by the years. His blue eyes, though a trifle bloodshot, seemed inexplicably keen and burning. But for his horrible unkemptness the man would have been as distinguished-looking as he was impressive. This unkemptness, however, made him offensive despite his face and figure. Of what his clothing consisted I could hardly tell, for it seemed to me no more than a mass of tatters surmounting a pair of high, heavy boots; and his lack of cleanliness surpassed description.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The appearance of this man, and the instinctive fear he inspired, prepared me for something like enmity; so that I almost shuddered through surprise and a sense of uncanny incongruity when he motioned me to a chair and addressed me in a thin, weak voice full of fawning respect and ingratiating hospitality. His speech was very curious, an extreme form of Yankee dialect I had thought long extinct; and I studied it closely as he sat down opposite me for conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKetched in the rain, be ye?\u201d he greeted. \u201cGlad ye was nigh the haouse en\u2019 hed the sense ta come right in. I calc\u2019late I was asleep, else I\u2019d a heerd ye \u2014 I ain\u2019t as young as I uster be, an\u2019 I need a paowerful sight o\u2019 naps naowadays. Trav\u2019lin\u2019 fur? I hain\u2019t seed many folks \u2018long this rud sence they tuk off the Arkham stage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I replied that I was going to Arkham, and apologised for my rude entry into his domicile, whereupon he continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGlad ta see ye, young Sir \u2014 new faces is scurce arount here, an\u2019 I hain\u2019t got much ta cheer me up these days. Guess yew hail from Bosting, don\u2019t ye? I never ben thar, but I kin tell a taown man when I see \u2018im \u2014 we hed one fer deestrick schoolmaster in \u2018eighty-four, but he quit suddent an\u2019 no one never heerd on \u2018im sence\u2014\u201d Here the old man lapsed into a kind of chuckle, and made no explanation when I questioned him. He seemed to be in an aboundingly good humour, yet to possess those eccentricities which one might guess from his grooming. For some time he rambled on with an almost feverish geniality, when it struck me to ask him how he came by so rare a book as Pigafetta\u2019s Regnum Congo.<\/em> The effect of this volume had not left me, and I felt a certain hesitancy in speaking of it; but curiosity overmastered all the vague fears which had steadily accumulated since my first glimpse of the house. To my relief, the question did not seem an awkward one; for the old man answered freely and volubly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, thet Afriky book? Cap\u2019n Ebenezer Holt traded me thet in \u2018sixty-eight \u2014 him as was kilt in the war.\u201d Something about the name of Ebenezer Holt caused me to look up sharply. I had encountered it in my genealogical work, but not in any record since the Revolution. I wondered if my host could help me in the task at which I was labouring, and resolved to ask him about it later on. He continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEbenezer was on a Salem merchantman for years, an\u2019 picked up a sight o\u2019 queer stuff in every port. He got this in London, I guess \u2014 he uster like ter buy things at the shops. I was up ta his haouse onct, on the hill, tradin\u2019 hosses, when I see this book. I relished the picters, so he give it in on a swap. \u2019Tis a queer book \u2014 here, leave me git on my spectacles\u2014\u201d The old man fumbled among his rags, producing a pair of dirty and amazingly antique glasses with small octagonal lenses and steel bows. Donning these, he reached for the volume on the table and turned the pages lovingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEbenezer cud read a leetle o\u2019 this\u2014 \u2019tis Latin \u2014 but I can\u2019t. I hed two er three schoolmasters read me a bit, and Passon Clark, him they say got draownded in the pond \u2014 kin yew make anything outen it?\u201d I told him that I could, and translated for his benefit a paragraph near the beginning. If I erred, he was not scholar enough to correct me; for he seemed childishly pleased at my English version. His proximity was becoming rather obnoxious, yet I saw no way to escape without offending him. I was amused at the childish fondness of this ignorant old man for the pictures in a book he could not read, and wondered how much better he could read the few books in English which adorned the room. This revelation of simplicity removed much of the ill-defined apprehension I had felt, and I smiled as my host rambled on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cQueer haow picters kin set a body thinkin\u2019. Take this un here near the front. Hev yew ever seed trees like thet, with big leaves a-floppin\u2019 over an\u2019 daown? And them men \u2014 them can\u2019t be niggers \u2014 they dew beat all. Kinder like Injuns, I guess, even ef they be in Afriky. Some o\u2019 these here critters looks like monkeys, or half monkeys an\u2019 half men, but I never heerd o\u2019 nothing like this un.\u201d Here he pointed to a fabulous creature of the artist, which one might describe as a sort of dragon with the head of an alligator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut naow I\u2019ll shew ye the best un \u2014 over here nigh the middle\u2014\u201d The old man\u2019s speech grew a trifle thicker and his eyes assumed a brighter glow; but his fumbling hands, though seemingly clumsier than before, were entirely adequate to their mission. The book fell open, almost of its own accord and as if from frequent consultation at this place, to the repellent twelfth plate shewing a butcher\u2019s shop amongst the Anzique cannibals. My sense of restlessness returned, though I did not exhibit it. The especially bizarre thing was that the artist had made his Africans look like white men \u2014 the limbs and quarters hanging about the walls of the shop were ghastly, while the butcher with his axe was hideously incongruous. But my host seemed to relish the view as much as I disliked it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat d\u2019ye think o\u2019 this \u2014 ain\u2019t never see the like hereabouts, eh? When I see this I telled Eb Holt, \u2018That\u2019s suthin\u2019 ta stir ye up an\u2019 make yer blood tickle!\u2019 When I read in Scripter about slayin\u2019 \u2014 like them Midianites was slew \u2014 I kinder think things, but I ain\u2019t got no picter of it. Here a body kin see all they is to it \u2014 I s\u2019pose \u2019tis sinful, but ain\u2019t we all born an\u2019 livin\u2019 in sin? \u2014 Thet feller bein\u2019 chopped up gives me a tickle every time I look at \u2018im \u2014 I hev ta keep lookin\u2019 at \u2018im \u2014 see whar the butcher cut off his feet? Thar\u2019s his head on thet bench, with one arm side of it, an\u2019 t\u2019other arm\u2019s on the graound side o\u2019 the meat block.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the man mumbled on in his shocking ecstasy the expression on his hairy, spectacled face became indescribable, but his voice sank rather than mounted. My own sensations can scarcely be recorded. All the terror I had dimly felt before rushed upon me actively and vividly, and I knew that I loathed the ancient and abhorrent creature so near me with an infinite intensity. His madness, or at least his partial perversion, seemed beyond dispute. He was almost whispering now, with a huskiness more terrible than a scream, and I trembled as I listened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs I says, \u2019tis queer haow picters sets ye thinkin\u2019. D\u2019ye know, young Sir, I\u2019m right sot on this un here. Arter I got the book off Eb I uster look at it a lot, especial when I\u2019d heerd Passon Clark rant o\u2019 Sundays in his big wig. Onct I tried suthin\u2019 funny \u2014 here, young Sir, don\u2019t git skeert \u2014 all I done was ter look at the picter afore I kilt the sheep for market \u2014 killin\u2019 sheep was kinder more fun arter lookin\u2019 at it\u2014\u201d The tone of the old man now sank very low, sometimes becoming so faint that his words were hardly audible. I listened to the rain, and to the rattling of the bleared, small-paned windows, and marked a rumbling of approaching thunder quite unusual for the season. Once a terrific flash and peal shook the frail house to its foundations, but the whisperer seemed not to notice it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKillin\u2019 sheep was kinder more fun \u2014 but d\u2019ye know, \u2018twan\u2019t quite satisfyin\u2019.<\/em> Queer haow a cravin\u2019<\/em> gits a holt on ye \u2014 As ye love the Almighty, young man, don\u2019t tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun ta make me hungry fer victuals I couldn\u2019t raise nor buy<\/em> \u2014 here, set still, what\u2019s ailin\u2019 ye? \u2014 I didn\u2019t do nothin\u2019, only I wondered haow \u2018twud be ef I did<\/em> \u2014 They say meat makes blood an\u2019 flesh, an\u2019 gives ye new life, so I wondered ef \u2018twudn\u2019t make a man live longer an\u2019 longer ef \u2019twas more the same<\/em>\u2014\u201d But the whisperer never continued. The interruption was not produced by my fright, nor by the rapidly increasing storm amidst whose fury I was presently to open my eyes on a smoky solitude of blackened ruins. It was produced by a very simple though somewhat unusual happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The open book lay flat between us, with the picture staring repulsively upward. As the old man whispered the words \u201cmore the same\u201d<\/em> a tiny spattering impact was heard, and something shewed on the yellowed paper of the upturned volume. I thought of the rain and of a leaky roof, but rain is not red. On the butcher\u2019s shop of the Anzique cannibals a small red spattering glistened picturesquely, lending vividness to the horror of the engraving. The old man saw it, and stopped whispering even before my expression of horror made it necessary; saw it and glanced quickly toward the floor of the room he had left an hour before. I followed his glance, and beheld just above us on the loose plaster of the ancient ceiling a large irregular spot of wet crimson which seemed to spread even as I viewed it. I did not shriek or move, but merely shut my eyes. A moment later came the titanic thunderbolt of thunderbolts; blasting that accursed house of unutterable secrets and bringing the oblivion which alone saved my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Picture in the House is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, published in July 1921 in The National Amateur. The story follows a traveler caught in a storm in the New England woods, seeking refuge in an old, isolated house. He meets a strange, disturbing-looking older man who receives him with disturbing hospitality. As they talk, attention is drawn to an old book illustrated with macabre scenes that arouse a sinister fascination in the host. As the storm rages, the atmosphere in the house becomes increasingly oppressive and disturbing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[579,572,570],"class_list":["post-19129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-stories","tag-h-p-lovecraft-en","tag-horror-en","tag-united-states","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":559,"label":"Short stories"}],"post_tag":[{"value":579,"label":"H. P. Lovecraft"},{"value":572,"label":"Horror"},{"value":570,"label":"United States"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/H.-P.-Lovecraft-El-grabado-en-la-casa.webp",1024,1024,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Juan Pablo Guevara","author_link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/author\/spartakku\/"},"comment_info":"","category_info":[{"term_id":559,"name":"Short stories","slug":"short-stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":559,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":420,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":559,"category_count":420,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Short stories","category_nicename":"short-stories","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":579,"name":"H. P. Lovecraft","slug":"h-p-lovecraft-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":579,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":22,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":572,"name":"Horror","slug":"horror-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":572,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":128,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":570,"name":"United States","slug":"united-states","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":570,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":294,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}