object:1f.lovecraft - The Tree
author class:H P Lovecraft
subject class:Fiction
genre class:Horror
class:chapter
Fata viam invenient.
On a verdant slope of Mount Maenalus, in Arcadia, there stands an olive
grove about the ruins of a villa. Close by is a tomb, once beautiful
with the sublimest sculptures, but now fallen into as great decay as
the house. At one end of that tomb, its curious roots displacing the
time-stained blocks of Pentelic marble, grows an unnaturally large
olive tree of oddly repellent shape; so like to some grotesque man, or
death-distorted body of a man, that the country folk fear to pass it at
night when the moon shines faintly through the crooked boughs. Mount
Maenalus is a chosen haunt of dreaded Pan, whose queer companions are
many, and simple swains believe that the tree must have some hideous
kinship to these weird Panisci; but an old bee-keeper who lives in the
neighbouring cottage told me a different story.
Many years ago, when the hillside villa was new and resplendent, there
dwelt within it the two sculptors Kalos and Musides. From Lydia to
Neapolis the beauty of their work was praised, and none dared say that
the one excelled the other in skill. The Hermes of Kalos stood in a
marble shrine in Corinth, and the Pallas of Musides surmounted a pillar
in Athens, near the Parthenon. All men paid homage to Kalos and
Musides, and marvelled that no shadow of artistic jealousy cooled the
warmth of their brotherly friendship.
But though Kalos and Musides dwelt in unbroken harmony, their natures
were not alike. Whilst Musides revelled by night amidst the urban
gaieties of Tegea, Kalos would remain at home; stealing away from the
sight of his slaves into the cool recesses of the olive grove. There he
would meditate upon the visions that filled his mind, and there devise
the forms of beauty which later became immortal in breathing marble.
Idle folk, indeed, said that Kalos conversed with the spirits of the
grove, and that his statues were but images of the fauns and dryads he
met therefor he patterned his work after no living model.
So famous were Kalos and Musides, that none wondered when the Tyrant of
Syracuse sent to them deputies to speak of the costly statue of Tych
which he had planned for his city. Of great size and cunning
workmanship must the statue be, for it was to form a wonder of nations
and a goal of travellers. Exalted beyond thought would be he whose work
should gain acceptance, and for this honour Kalos and Musides were
invited to compete. Their brotherly love was well known, and the crafty
Tyrant surmised that each, instead of concealing his work from the
other, would offer aid and advice; this charity producing two images of
unheard-of beauty, the lovelier of which would eclipse even the dreams
of poets.
With joy the sculptors hailed the Tyrants offer, so that in the days
that followed their slaves heard the ceaseless blows of chisels. Not
from each other did Kalos and Musides conceal their work, but the sight
was for them alone. Saving theirs, no eyes beheld the two divine
figures released by skilful blows from the rough blocks that had
imprisoned them since the world began.
At night, as of yore, Musides sought the banquet halls of Tegea whilst
Kalos wandered alone in the olive grove. But as time passed, men
observed a want of gaiety in the once sparkling Musides. It was
strange, they said amongst themselves, that depression should thus
seize one with so great a chance to win arts loftiest reward. Many
months passed, yet in the sour face of Musides came nothing of the
sharp expectancy which the situation should arouse.
Then one day Musides spoke of the illness of Kalos, after which none
marvelled again at his sadness, since the sculptors attachment was
known to be deep and sacred. Subsequently many went to visit Kalos, and
indeed noticed the pallor of his face; but there was about him a happy
serenity which made his glance more magical than the glance of
Musideswho was clearly distracted with anxiety, and who pushed aside
all the slaves in his eagerness to feed and wait upon his friend with
his own hands. Hidden behind heavy curtains stood the two unfinished
figures of Tych, little touched of late by the sick man and his
faithful attendant.
As Kalos grew inexplicably weaker and weaker despite the ministrations
of puzzled physicians and of his assiduous friend, he desired to be
carried often to the grove which he so loved. There he would ask to be
left alone, as if wishing to speak with unseen things. Musides ever
granted his requests, though his eyes filled with visible tears at the
thought that Kalos should care more for the fauns and the dryads than
for him. At last the end drew near, and Kalos discoursed of things
beyond this life. Musides, weeping, promised him a sepulchre more
lovely than the tomb of Mausolus; but Kalos bade him speak no more of
marble glories. Only one wish now haunted the mind of the dying man;
that twigs from certain olive trees in the grove be buried by his
resting-placeclose to his head. And one night, sitting alone in the
darkness of the olive grove, Kalos died.
Beautiful beyond words was the marble sepulchre which stricken Musides
carved for his beloved friend. None but Kalos himself could have
fashioned such bas-reliefs, wherein were displayed all the splendours
of Elysium. Nor did Musides fail to bury close to Kalos head the olive
twigs from the grove.
As the first violence of Musides grief gave place to resignation, he
laboured with diligence upon his figure of Tych. All honour was now
his, since the Tyrant of Syracuse would have the work of none save him
or Kalos. His task proved a vent for his emotion, and he toiled more
steadily each day, shunning the gaieties he once had relished.
Meanwhile his evenings were spent beside the tomb of his friend, where
a young olive tree had sprung up near the sleepers head. So swift was
the growth of this tree, and so strange was its form, that all who
beheld it exclaimed in surprise; and Musides seemed at once fascinated
and repelled.
Three years after the death of Kalos, Musides despatched a messenger to
the Tyrant, and it was whispered in the agora at Tegea that the mighty
statue was finished. By this time the tree by the tomb had attained
amazing proportions, exceeding all other trees of its kind, and sending
out a singularly heavy branch above the apartment in which Musides
laboured. As many visitors came to view the prodigious tree, as to
admire the art of the sculptor, so that Musides was seldom alone. But
he did not mind his multitude of guests; indeed, he seemed to dread
being alone now that his absorbing work was done. The bleak mountain
wind, sighing through the olive grove and the tomb-tree, had an uncanny
way of forming vaguely articulate sounds.
The sky was dark on the evening that the Tyrants emissaries came to
Tegea. It was definitely known that they had come to bear away the
great image of Tych and bring eternal honour to Musides, so their
reception by the proxenoi was of great warmth. As the night wore on, a
violent storm of wind broke over the crest of Maenalus, and the men
from far Syracuse were glad that they rested snugly in the town. They
talked of their illustrious Tyrant, and of the splendour of his
capital; and exulted in the glory of the statue which Musides had
wrought for him. And then the men of Tegea spoke of the goodness of
Musides, and of his heavy grief for his friend; and how not even the
coming laurels of art could console him in the absence of Kalos, who
might have worn those laurels instead. Of the tree which grew by the
tomb, near the head of Kalos, they also spoke. The wind shrieked more
horribly, and both the Syracusans and the Arcadians prayed to Aiolos.
In the sunshine of the morning the proxenoi led the Tyrants messengers
up the slope to the abode of the sculptor, but the night-wind had done
strange things. Slaves cries ascended from a scene of desolation, and
no more amidst the olive grove rose the gleaming colonnades of that
vast hall wherein Musides had dreamed and toiled. Lone and shaken
mourned the humble courts and the lower walls, for upon the sumptuous
greater peristyle had fallen squarely the heavy overhanging bough of
the strange new tree, reducing the stately poem in marble with odd
completeness to a mound of unsightly ruins. Strangers and Tegeans stood
aghast, looking from the wreckage to the great, sinister tree whose
aspect was so weirdly human and whose roots reached so queerly into the
sculptured sepulchre of Kalos. And their fear and dismay increased when
they searched the fallen apartment; for of the gentle Musides, and of
the marvellously fashioned image of Tych, no trace could be
discovered. Amidst such stupendous ruin only chaos dwelt, and the
representatives of two cities left disappointed; Syracusans that they
had no statue to bear home, Tegeans that they had no artist to crown.
However, the Syracusans obtained after a while a very splendid statue
in Athens, and the Tegeans consoled themselves by erecting in the agora
a marble temple commemorating the gifts, virtues, and brotherly piety
of Musides.
But the olive grove still stands, as does the tree growing out of the
tomb of Kalos, and the old bee-keeper told me that sometimes the boughs
whisper to one another in the night-wind, saying over and over again,
! !I know! I know!
Return to The Tree
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