Lovecraft, H P - Herbert West - Reanimator

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Herbert West: Reanimator

by H. P. Lovecraft

Written Sep 1921-mid 1922

Published in six parts, February-July 1922 in Home Brew, Vol. 1, Nos. 1-6.

I. From The Dark

Published Februrary 1922 in Home Brew Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 19-25.

Of Herbert West, who was my friend in college and in after life, I can speak only with

extreme terror. This terror is not due altogether to the sinister manner of his recent

disappearance, but was engendered by the whole nature of his life-work, and first gained

its acute form more than seventeen years ago, when we were in the third year of our

course at the Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham. While he was with me,

the wonder and diabolism of his experiments fascinated me utterly, and I was his closest

companion. Now that he is gone and the spell is broken, the actual fear is greater.

Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities.

The first horrible incident of our acquaintance was the greatest shock I ever experienced,

and it is only with reluctance that I repeat it. As I have said, it happened when we were in

the medical school where West had already made himself notorious through his wild

theories on the nature of death and the possibility of overcoming it artificially. His views,

which were widely ridiculed by the faculty and by his fellow-students, hinged on the

essentially mechanistic nature of life; and concerned means for operating the organic

machinery of mankind by calculated chemical action after the failure of natural

processes. In his experiments with various animating solutions, he had killed and treated

immense numbers of rabbits, guinea-pigs, cats, dogs, and monkeys, till he had become

the prime nuisance of the college. Several times he had actually obtained signs of life in

animals supposedly dead; in many cases violent signs but he soon saw that the perfection

of his process, if indeed possible, would necessarily involve a lifetime of research. It

likewise became clear that, since the same solution never worked alike on different

organic species, he would require human subjects for further and more specialised

progress. It was here that he first came into conflict with the college authorities, and was

debarred from future experiments by no less a dignitary than the dean of the medical

school himself -- the learned and benevolent Dr. Allan Halsey, whose work in behalf of

the stricken is recalled by every old resident of Arkham.

I had always been exceptionally tolerant of West's pursuits, and we frequently discussed

his theories, whose ramifications and corollaries were almost infinite. Holding with

Haeckel that all life is a chemical and physical process, and that the so-called "soul" is a

myth, my friend believed that artificial reanimation of the dead can depend only on the

condition of the tissues; and that unless actual decomposition has set in, a corpse fully

equipped with organs may with suitable measures be set going again in the peculiar

Herbert West: Reanimator

fashion known as life. That the psychic or intellectual life might be impaired by the slight

deterioration of sensitive brain-cells which even a short period of death would be apt to

cause, West fully realised. It had at first been his hope to find a reagent which would

restore vitality before the actual advent of death, and only repeated failures on animals

had shewn him that the natural and artificial life-motions were incompatible. He then

sought extreme freshness in his specimens, injecting his solutions into the blood

immediately after the extinction of life. It was this circumstance which made the

professors so carelessly sceptical, for they felt that true death had not occurred in any

case. They did not stop to view the matter closely and reasoningly.

It was not long after the faculty had interdicted his work that West confided to me his

resolution to get fresh human bodies in some manner, and continue in secret the

experiments he could no longer perform openly. To hear him discussing ways and means

was rather ghastly, for at the college we had never procured anatomical specimens

ourselves. Whenever the morgue proved inadequate, two local negroes attended to this

matter, and they were seldom questioned. West was then a small, slender, spectacled

youth with delicate features, yellow hair, pale blue eyes, and a soft voice, and it was

uncanny to hear him dwelling on the relative merits of Christchurch Cemetery and the

potter's field. We finally decided on the potter's field, because practically every body in

Christchurch was embalmed; a thing of course ruinous to West's researches.

I was by this time his active and enthralled assistant, and helped him make all his

decisions, not only concerning the source of bodies but concerning a suitable place for

our loathsome work. It was I who thought of the deserted Chapman farmhouse beyond

Meadow Hill, where we fitted up on the ground floor an operating room and a laboratory,

each with dark curtains to conceal our midnight doings. The place was far from any road,

and in sight of no other house, yet precautions were none the less necessary; since

rumours of strange lights, started by chance nocturnal roamers, would soon bring disaster

on our enterprise. It was agreed to call the whole thing a chemical laboratory if discovery

should occur. Gradually we equipped our sinister haunt of science with materials either

purchased in Boston or quietly borrowed from the college -- materials carefully made

unrecognisable save to expert eyes -- and provided spades and picks for the many burials

we should have to make in the cellar. At the college we used an incinerator, but the

apparatus was too costly for our unauthorised laboratory. Bodies were always a nuisance

-- even the small guinea-pig bodies from the slight clandestine experiments in West's

room at the boarding-house.

We followed the local death-notices like ghouls, for our specimens demanded particular

qualities. What we wanted were corpses interred soon after death and without artificial

preservation; preferably free from malforming disease, and certainly with all organs

present. Accident victims were our best hope. Not for many weeks did we hear of

anything suitable; though we talked with morgue and hospital authorities, ostensibly in

the college's interest, as often as we could without exciting suspicion. We found that the

college had first choice in every case, so that it might be necessary to remain in Arkham

during the summer, when only the limited summer-school classes were held. In the end,

though, luck favoured us; for one day we heard of an almost ideal case in the potter's

field; a brawny young workman drowned only the morning before in Summer's Pond,

Herbert West: Reanimator

and buried at the town's expense without delay or embalming. That afternoon we found

the new grave, and determined to begin work soon after midnight.

It was a repulsive task that we undertook in the black small hours, even though we lacked

at that time the special horror of graveyards which later experiences brought to us. We

carried spades and oil dark lanterns, for although electric torches were then

manufactured, they were not as satisfactory as the tungsten contrivances of today. The

process of unearthing was slow and sordid -- it might have been gruesomely poetical if

we had been artists instead of scientists -- and we were glad when our spades struck

wood. When the pine box was fully uncovered, West scrambled down and removed the

lid, dragging out and propping up the contents. I reached down and hauled the contents

out of the grave, and then both toiled hard to restore the spot to its former appearance.

The affair made us rather nervous, especially the stiff form and vacant face of our first

trophy, but we managed to remove all traces of our visit. When we had patted down the

last shovelful of earth, we put the specimen in a canvas sack and set out for the old

Chapman place beyond Meadow Hill.

On an improvised dissecting-table in the old farmhouse, by the light of a powerful

acetylene lamp, the specimen was not very spectral looking. It had been a sturdy and

apparently unimaginative youth of wholesome plebeian type -- large-framed, grey-eyed,

and brown-haired -- a sound animal without psychological subtleties, and probably

having vital processes of the simplest and healthiest sort. Now, with the eyes closed, it

looked more asleep than dead; though the expert test of my friend soon left no doubt on

that score. We had at last what West had always longed for -- a real dead man of the ideal

kind, ready for the solution as prepared according to the most careful calculations and

theories for human use. The tension on our part became very great. We knew that there

was scarcely a chance for anything like complete success, and could not avoid hideous

fears at possible grotesque results of partial animation. Especially were we apprehensive

concerning the mind and impulses of the creature, since in the space following death

some of the more delicate cerebral cells might well have suffered deterioration. I, myself,

still held some curious notions about the traditional "soul" of man, and felt an awe at the

secrets that might be told by one returning from the dead. I wondered what sights this

placid youth might have seen in inaccessible spheres, and what he could relate if fully

restored to life. But my wonder was not overwhelming, since for the most part I shared

the materialism of my friend. He was calmer than I as he forced a large quantity of his

fluid into a vein of the body's arm, immediately binding the incision securely.

The waiting was gruesome, but West never faltered. Every now and then he applied his

stethoscope to the specimen, and bore the negative results philosophically. After about

three-quarters of an hour without the least sign of life he disappointedly pronounced the

solution inadequate, but determined to make the most of his opportunity and try one

change in the formula before disposing of his ghastly prize. We had that afternoon dug a

grave in the cellar, and would have to fill it by dawn -- for although we had fixed a lock

on the house, we wished to shun even the remotest risk of a ghoulish discovery. Besides,

the body would not be even approximately fresh the next night. So taking the solitary

acetylene lamp into the adjacent laboratory, we left our silent guest on the slab in the

Herbert West: Reanimator

dark, and bent every energy to the mixing of a new solution; the weighing and measuring

supervised by West with an almost fanatical care.

The awful event was very sudden, and wholly unexpected. I was pouring something from

one test-tube to another, and West was busy over the alcohol blast-lamp which had to

answer for a Bunsen burner in this gasless edifice, when from the pitch-black room we

had left there burst the most appalling and daemoniac succession of cries that either of us

had ever heard. Not more unutterable could have been the chaos of hellish sound if the pit

itself had opened to release the agony of the damned, for in one inconceivable cacophony

was centered all the supernal terror and unnatural despair of animate nature. Human it

could not have been -- it is not in man to make such sounds -- and without a thought of

our late employment or its possible discovery, both West and I leaped to the nearest

window like stricken animals; overturning tubes, lamp, and retorts, and vaulting madly

into the starred abyss of the rural night. I think we screamed ourselves as we stumbled

frantically toward the town, though as we reached the outskirts we put on a semblance of

restraint -- just enough to seem like belated revellers staggering home from a debauch.

We did not separate, but managed to get to West's room, where we whispered with the

gas up until dawn. By then we had calmed ourselves a little with rational theories and

plans for investigation, so that we could sleep through the day -- classes being

disregarded. But that evening two items in the paper, wholly unrelated, made it again

impossible for us to sleep. The old deserted Chapman house had inexplicably burned to

an amorphous heap of ashes; that we could understand because of the upset lamp. Also,

an attempt had been made to disturb a new grave in the potter's field, as if by futile and

spadeless clawing at the earth. That we could not understand, for we had patted down the

mould very carefully.

And for seventeen years after that West would look frequently over his shoulder, and

complain of fancied footsteps behind him. Now he has disappeared.

II. The Plague-Daemon

Published March 1922 in Home Brew Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 45-50.

I shall never forget that hideous summer sixteen years ago, when like a noxious afrite

from the halls of Eblis typhoid stalked leeringly through Arkham. It is by that satanic

scourge that most recall the year, for truly terror brooded with bat-wings over the piles of

coffins in the tombs of Christchurch Cemetery; yet for me there is a greater horror in that

time -- a horror known to me alone now that Herbert West has disappeared.

West and I were doing post-graduate work in summer classes at the medical school of

Miskatonic University, and my friend had attained a wide notoriety because of his

experiments leading toward the revivification of the dead. After the scientific slaughter of

uncounted small animals the freakish work had ostensibly stopped by order of our

sceptical dean, Dr. Allan Halsey; though West had continued to perform certain secret

tests in his dingy boarding-house room, and had on one terrible and unforgettable

Herbert West: Reanimator

occasion taken a human body from its grave in the potter's field to a deserted farmhouse

beyond Meadow Hill.

I was with him on that odious occasion, and saw him inject into the still veins the elixir

which he thought would to some extent restore life's chemical and physical processes. It

had ended horribly -- in a delirium of fear which we gradually came to attribute to our

own overwrought nerves -- and West had never afterward been able to shake off a

maddening sensation of being haunted and hunted. The body had not been quite fresh

enough; it is obvious that to restore normal mental attributes a body must be very fresh

indeed; and the burning of the old house had prevented us from burying the thing. It

would have been better if we could have known it was underground.

After that experience West had dropped his researches for some time; but as the zeal of

the born scientist slowly returned, he again became importunate with the college faculty,

pleading for the use of the dissecting-room and of fresh human specimens for the work he

regarded as so overwhelmingly important. His pleas, however, were wholly in vain; for

the decision of Dr. Halsey was inflexible, and the other professors all endorsed the

verdict of their leader. In the radical theory of reanimation they saw nothing but the

immature vagaries of a youthful enthusiast whose slight form, yellow hair, spectacled

blue eyes, and soft voice gave no hint of the supernormal -- almost diabolical -- power of

the cold brain within. I can see him now as he was then -- and I shiver. He grew sterner of

face, but never elderly. And now Sefton Asylum has had the mishap and West has

vanished.

West clashed disagreeably with Dr. Halsey near the end of our last undergraduate term in

a wordy dispute that did less credit to him than to the kindiy dean in point of courtesy. He

felt that he was needlessly and irrationally retarded in a supremely great work; a work

which he could of course conduct to suit himself in later years, but which he wished to

begin while still possessed of the exceptional facilities of the university. That the

tradition-bound elders should ignore his singular results on animals, and persist in their

denial of the possibility of reanimation, was inexpressibly disgusting and almost

incomprehensible to a youth of West's logical temperament. Only greater maturity could

help him understand the chronic mental limitations of the "professor-doctor" type -- the

product of generations of pathetic Puritanism; kindly, conscientious, and sometimes

gentle and amiable, yet always narrow, intolerant, custom-ridden, and lacking in

perspective. Age has more charity for these incomplete yet high-souled characters, whose

worst real vice is timidity, and who are ultimately punished by general ridicule for their

intellectual sins -- sins like Ptolemaism, Calvinism, anti-Darwinism, anti-Nietzscheism,

and every sort of Sabbatarianism and sumptuary legislation. West, young despite his

marvellous scientific acquirements, had scant patience with good Dr. Halsey and his

erudite colleagues; and nursed an increasing resentment, coupled with a desire to prove

his theories to these obtuse worthies in some striking and dramatic fashion. Like most

youths, he indulged in elaborate daydreams of revenge, triumph, and final magnanimous

forgiveness.

And then had come the scourge, grinning and lethal, from the nightmare caverns of

Tartarus. West and I had graduated about the time of its beginning, but had remained for

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摘要：

HerbertWest:ReanimatorHerbertWest:ReanimatorbyH.P.LovecraftWrittenSep1921-mid1922Publishedinsixparts,February-July1922inHomeBrew,Vol.1,Nos.1-6.I.FromTheDarkPublishedFebrurary1922inHomeBrewVol.1,No.1,p.19-25.OfHerbertWest,whowasmyfriendincollegeandinafterlife,Icanspeakonlywithextremeterror.Thisterror...

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Lovecraft, H P - Herbert West - Reanimator

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