




                        THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE

                          By H. P. Lovecraft

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                    Amazing Stories September 1927. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] _Here is a totally different story that we can
           highly recommend to you. We could wax rhapsodical
           in our praise, as the story is one of the finest
         pieces of literature it has been our good fortune to
            read. The theme is original, and yet fantastic
            enough to make it rise head and shoulders above
          many contemporary scientifiction stories. You will
             not regret having read this marvellous tale._


West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep
woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the
trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without
ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentler slopes there
are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding
eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but
these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled
sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs. The old folk have gone away, and foreigners do not like to live there. French-Canadians have tried it, Italians have tried it, and the Poles
have come and departed. It is not because of anything that can be seen
or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The
place is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at
night. It must be this which keeps the foreigners away, for old Ammi
Pierce has never told them of anything he recalls from the strange
days. Ammi, whose head has been a little queer for years, is the only
one who still remains, or who ever talks of the strange days; and he
dares to do this because his house is so near the open fields and the
travelled roads around Arkham. There was once a road over the hills and through the valleys, that ran
straight where the blasted heath is now; but people ceased to use it
and a new road was laid curving far toward the south. Traces of the
old one can still be found amidst the weeds of a returning wilderness,
and some of them will doubtless linger even when half the hollows are
flooded for the new reservoir. Then the dark woods will be cut down and
the blasted heath will slumber far below blue waters whose surface will
mirror the sky and ripple in the sun. And the secrets of the strange
days will be one with the deep's secrets; one with the hidden lore of
old ocean, and all the mystery of primal earth. When I went into the hills and vales to survey for the new reservoir
they told me the place was evil. They told me this in Arkham, and
because that is a very old town full of witch legends I thought the
evil must be something which grandmas had whispered to children
through centuries. The name "blasted heath" seemed to me very odd
and theatrical, and I wondered how it had come into the folklore of
a Puritan people. Then I saw that dark westward tangle of glens and
slopes for myself, and ceased to wonder at anything besides its own
elder mystery. It was morning when I saw it, but shadow lurked always
there. The trees grew too thickly, and their trunks were too big for
any healthy New England wood. There was too much silence in the dim
alleys between them, and the floor was too soft with the dank moss and
mattings of infinite years of decay. In the open spaces, mostly along the line of the old road, there were
little hillside farms; sometimes with all the buildings standing,
sometimes with only one or two, and sometimes with only a lone chimney
or fast-filling cellar. Weeds and briers reigned, and furtive wild
things rustled in the undergrowth. Upon everything was a haze of
restlessness and oppression; a touch of the unreal and the grotesque,
as if some vital element of perspective or chiaroscuro were awry. I did
not wonder that the foreigners would not stay, for this was no region
to sleep in. It was too much like a landscape of Salvator Rosa; too
much like some forbidden woodcut in a tale of terror. But even all this was not so bad as the blasted heath. I knew it the
moment I came upon it at the bottom of a spacious valley; for no other
name could fit such thing, or any other thing fit such a name. It
was as if the poet had coined the phrase from having seen this one
particular region. It must, I thought as I viewed it, be the outcome
of a fire; but why had nothing new ever grown over those five acres of
grey desolation that sprawled open to the sky like a great spot eaten
by acid in the woods and fields? It lay largely to the north of the
ancient road line, but encroached a little on the other side. I felt
an odd reluctance about approaching, and did so at last only because
my business took me through and past it. There was no vegetation of
any kind on that broad expanse, but only a fine grey dust or ash which
no wind seemed ever to blow about. The trees near it were sickly
and stunted, and many dead trunks stood or lay rotting at the rim. As I walked hurriedly by I saw the tumbled bricks and stones of an
old chimney and cellar on my right, and the yawning black maw of an
abandoned well whose stagnant vapours played strange tricks with the
hues of the sunlight. Even the long, dark woodland climb beyond seemed
welcome in contrast, and I marvelled no more at the frightened whispers
of Arkham people. There had been no house or ruin near; even in the
old days the place must have been lonely and remote. And at twilight,
dreading to repass that ominous spot, I walked circuitously back to the
town by the curving road on the south. I vaguely wished some clouds
would gather, for an odd timidity about the deep skyey voids above had
crept into my soul. In the evening I asked old people in Arkham about the blasted heath,
and what was meant by that phrase "strange days" which so many
evasively muttered. I could not, however, get any good answers, except
that all the mystery was much more recent than I had dreamed. It was
not a matter of old legendry at all, but something within the lifetime
of those who spoke. It had happened in the 'eighties, and a family had
disappeared or was killed. Speakers would not be exact; and because
they all told me to pay no attention to old Ammi Pierce's crazy tales,
I sought him out the next morning, having heard that he lived alone in
the ancient tottering cottage where the trees first begin to get very
thick. It was a fearsomely ancient place, and had begun to exude the
faint miasmal odour which clings about houses that have stood too long. Only with persistent knocking could I rouse the aged man, and when he
shuffled timidly to the door I could tell he was not glad to see me.