The Dreams in the Witch House (Lovecraft)
Short Summary
Arkham, Massachusetts, 1930s. Walter Gilman, a mathematics student at Miskatonic University, rented a room in the old Witch House where Keziah Mason, a witch who escaped from Salem Gaol in 1692, once lived. Gilman's room had strangely angled walls and ceiling that seemed to possess mathematical significance.
Gilman developed a fever and began experiencing vivid dreams where he traveled through strange, non-Euclidean spaces. In these dreams, he encountered an old woman and a rat-like creature with a human face called Brown Jenkin, Keziah's familiar. As his dreams intensified, Gilman found himself in alien dimensions and on strange worlds with bizarre architecture.
His waking life became increasingly disturbed as he experienced strange sounds and sensations. He began sleepwalking and discovered a strange spiky artifact in his room that matched an object from his dreams. Fellow lodgers reported seeing violet light in his room at night, and the superstitious residents feared the approach of Walpurgis Night, when witches were said to gather.
In his final dream, Gilman was taken by the witch to a secret meeting where he was forced to sign a book with his blood. Later, he dreamed of being dragged through the streets by Keziah and Brown Jenkin to kidnap a child. The next day, he discovered mud on his feet and learned that a child had indeed been kidnapped during the night by figures matching those in his dream.
It would be barbarous to do more than suggest what had killed Gilman. There had been virtually a tunnel through his body—something had eaten his heart out... The worst thing for a while was keeping Joe Mazurewicz quiet; for the brooding loomfixer would never stay sober...
Years later, when the house was demolished, workers discovered human bones in the sealed spaces above Gilman's room, including those of children and an elderly woman. They also found strange artifacts, including a knife and the skeleton of an abnormal rat with prehensile paws resembling human hands.
Detailed Summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
Introduction to Walter Gilman and the Witch House
Walter Gilman, a student at Miskatonic University, took up residence in a garret room of an ancient house in Arkham known as the Witch House. He was unsure whether his strange dreams brought on his fever or if the fever caused the dreams. The old house and its peculiar angles fascinated him, despite the disturbing sounds he heard at night – rats scurrying in the walls, creaking timbers, and other unexplained noises that made him uneasy.
Behind everything crouched the brooding, festering horror of the ancient town, and of the mouldy, unhallowed garret gable where he wrote and studied and wrestled with figures and formulae when he was not tossing on the meagre iron bed.
The house had a sinister reputation in Arkham, as it had once been the dwelling of Keziah Mason, a witch who mysteriously escaped from Salem Gaol in 1692. The jailer had gone mad, babbling about a small, white-fanged furry creature that scuttled out of her cell. Even the renowned Cotton Mather could not explain the strange curves and angles smeared on the cell walls with a red, sticky substance.
Gilman's Studies and the History of Keziah Mason
Gilman's academic pursuits at Miskatonic University combined advanced mathematics with folklore studies, a combination that his professors warned might be too mentally taxing. His fascination with non-Euclidean calculus and quantum physics, coupled with his research into ancient legends, created a dangerous intellectual mixture.
Non-Euclidean calculus and quantum physics are enough to stretch any brain; and when one mixes them with folklore, and tries to trace a strange background of multi-dimensional reality behind the ghoulish hints of the Gothic tales...
Despite warnings from his professors, who had restricted his access to certain forbidden books in the university library, Gilman had already encountered disturbing information in texts like the Necronomicon, the Book of Eibon, and von Junzt's Unaussprechlichen Kulten. These readings reinforced his theories about the properties of space and the connections between dimensions.
Gilman had deliberately chosen to live in the Witch House because of his interest in Keziah Mason. He was fascinated by her trial records, particularly her testimony about lines and curves that could point to directions through the walls of space to other realms. She had spoken of midnight meetings in a valley beyond Meadow Hill and on an island in the river. She had also mentioned the Black Man, her oath to him, and her new secret name, Nahab. After drawing strange symbols on her cell walls, she had vanished without explanation.
The student believed that Keziah had somehow gained mathematical insights that might have anticipated the work of modern physicists like Planck, Heisenberg, Einstein, and de Sitter. He searched the walls of his room for traces of her cryptic designs and managed to secure the eastern attic room where she had allegedly practiced her spells. The Polish landlord had been reluctant to rent it due to its reputation, but Gilman experienced nothing unusual until his fever began.
The Onset of Strange Dreams and Geometric Distortions
By February, Gilman's brain fever took hold, accompanied by bizarre dreams. The peculiar angles of his room began to exert a hypnotic effect on him. He found himself staring at the corner where the slanting ceiling met the inward-slanting wall. His concentration on his studies suffered, and he developed an abnormally heightened sense of hearing that made everyday sounds unbearable.
As time wore along, his absorption in the irregular wall and ceiling of his room increased; for he began to read into the odd angles a mathematical significance which seemed to offer vague clues regarding their purpose.
Gilman theorized that the unusual geometry of his room might have been deliberately designed by Keziah Mason to facilitate travel between dimensions. His interest shifted from the spaces beyond the slanting surfaces to the mathematical properties of the angles themselves. Meanwhile, the rat sounds in the walls grew more disturbing, sometimes seeming deliberate rather than random.
His dreams became increasingly bizarre, taking him through strange abysses of colored twilight and disordered sound. Gilman attributed these nightmares to his combined studies of mathematics and folklore, and to the suggestive power of the legends surrounding Keziah Mason. The descriptions of her familiar, a small rat-like creature with a human face called "Brown Jenkin," particularly disturbed him.
Intensification of Dreams and Appearances of Brown Jenkin
As Gilman's fever persisted, his dreams grew more vivid and terrifying. He experienced plunges through limitless abysses filled with inexplicably colored twilight and chaotic sounds. In these dreams, he encountered strange organic and inorganic entities that defied description, moving in ways he could not comprehend.
Gilman's dreams consisted largely in plunges through limitless abysses of inexplicably coloured twilight and bafflingly disordered sound; abysses whose material and gravitational properties, and whose relation to his own entity, he could not even begin to explain.
In his lighter dreams, just before falling into deeper sleep, Gilman began to see Brown Jenkin. The creature would emerge from a rat-hole in his room and approach his bed with evil expectancy in its bearded human face. Fortunately, he always woke before the creature could reach him. Each day, Gilman tried to block the rat-hole, but by morning the obstruction would be removed.
By March, Brown Jenkin was joined in Gilman's dreams by a nebulous blur that gradually took the form of an old woman resembling Keziah Mason. This disturbed him greatly, reminding him of an elderly woman he had twice encountered in the lanes near the abandoned wharves. He began to suspect that in unremembered dreams, he had conversations with both Brown Jenkin and the old woman, who urged him to go somewhere with them to meet a third, more powerful entity.
Meanwhile, Gilman's mathematical abilities improved remarkably. He demonstrated an intuitive understanding of Riemannian equations and fourth-dimensional problems that astonished Professor Upham. His theoretical discussions about possible travel between celestial bodies through higher dimensions impressed his classmates, though they also fueled gossip about his eccentricity.
In his dreams, the old witch became increasingly distinct. She would appear near the corner where the downward slant met the inward slant, seeming to crystallize at a point closer to the ceiling than the floor. She and Brown Jenkin urged Gilman to meet the Black Man and go with them to the throne of Azathoth at the center of ultimate Chaos. Gilman resisted because he recognized the name "Azathoth" from the Necronomicon and knew it represented a primal evil.
Physical Evidence of Dream Travel and the Spiky Object
Gilman's housemate, Frank Elwood, discovered that Gilman had begun sleepwalking. Twice he had found Gilman's room empty in the middle of the night, though all his clothes remained in place. Gilman resolved to investigate this phenomenon, perhaps by sprinkling flour on the floor to track his movements.
On the night of April 19-20, Gilman's dreams took a new turn. After traveling through the twilight abysses with strange bubble-like entities, he found himself standing on a rocky hillside bathed in green light. The old woman and Brown Jenkin appeared, guiding him in a certain direction before he returned to the abysses and eventually woke in his bed.
Throughout the following day, Gilman felt an inexplicable pull toward the southeast. Despite his efforts to resist, he found himself drawn to the ill-regarded island in the Miskatonic River. There, he spotted the old woman on the island, with something moving in the grass near her. Terrified, he fled back to town.
That night, Gilman dreamed of a fantastical alien city with bizarre architecture under a polychromatic sky. On a high terrace, he found small metal figurines of unusual design along the balustrade. When he grasped one of these spiky objects, it broke off in his hand. Five tall entities shaped like the figurines approached him, causing him to wake in terror.
Upon waking, Gilman was shocked to discover the spiky metal object from his dream lying on his table. He took it to his landlord, who said his wife had found a strange metal object in Gilman's bed that day. Confused and frightened, Gilman returned to his room and sprinkled flour on the floor to track his movements during the night.
The Convergence of Dreams and Reality
That night, Gilman dreamed that the old woman and Brown Jenkin pulled him out of bed and into a small, windowless space with rough beams and a slanting floor. Books of various ages filled low cases, and objects of unknown purpose were arranged on top. The Black Man stood beyond a table, pointing to a large book. The witch thrust a quill into Gilman's hand, while Brown Jenkin ran up his arm and bit his wrist.
Gilman awoke with pain in his wrist and found his cuff stained with dried blood. The flour on the corridor floor was undisturbed, indicating he had not been sleepwalking. He assumed a rat had bitten him during the night, though he found no blood on his bedspread. The spiky image continued to puzzle him, and he decided to ask Elwood for help.
Elwood was alarmed by Gilman's haggard appearance and strange sunburn. He revealed that other tenants had been talking about Gilman's nocturnal activities. The French-Canadian lodger beneath Gilman's room had told Joe Mazurewicz about hearing footsteps at night and seeing a violet light through the keyhole of Gilman's door.
Just what had really happened was maddeningly obscure, and for a moment both Gilman and Elwood exchanged whispered theories of the wildest kind. Had Gilman unconsciously succeeded better than he knew in his studies of space and its dimensions?
Elwood suggested that Gilman move to his room to avoid sleeping alone. They would take the spiky image to various museums for identification and have Dombrowski poison the rats in the walls. For several days, Gilman enjoyed freedom from disturbing dreams while staying in Elwood's room. The mysterious object was examined by professors and subjected to chemical analysis, which revealed platinum, iron, tellurium, and at least three unknown elements that could not be classified.
May-Eve and the Ritual
As April 30th approached, the superstitious tenants grew increasingly anxious about Walpurgis Night. Mazurewicz warned Gilman about the witch light he had seen in the garret window and gave him a crucifix for protection. The night before Walpurgis, Gilman returned to his own room despite the warnings. That night, his dreams of the old witch and Brown Jenkin returned with greater intensity.
The next day, a disturbing news story appeared in the paper: a two-year-old child named Ladislas Wolejko had been kidnapped from Orne's Gangway. The mother had feared this would happen, claiming she had seen Brown Jenkin around her home since March. Witnesses reported seeing a trio entering the gangway after midnight – a huge robed negro, an old woman in rags, and a young white man in nightclothes.
That night, as Walpurgis Eve arrived, Gilman and Elwood sat in their chairs, lulled by Mazurewicz's rhythmical praying from the floor below. Gilman found himself listening for the chants of Sabbat celebrants in the distant black valley. He saw that Elwood had fallen asleep but found himself unable to wake his friend. Something seemed to control him.
Suddenly, Brown Jenkin appeared at the rat-hole. Gilman was drawn into the twilight abysses and eventually found himself in the peaked space with the slanting floor. On a table lay a small white figure – an unconscious infant boy. The old woman stood nearby with a knife in one hand and a metal bowl in the other, chanting in an unknown language. Brown Jenkin joined in the ritual.
He must meet the Black Man, and go with them all to the throne of Azathoth at the centre of ultimate Chaos. That was what she said. He must sign in his own blood the book of Azathoth and take a new secret name now that his independent delvings had gone so far.
Breaking free from his mental paralysis, Gilman knocked the knife from the witch's hand, sending it over the edge of a triangular gulf in the floor. The witch attacked him, wrapping her claws around his throat. Gilman felt the chain of Mazurewicz's crucifix grinding into his neck and managed to pull it out. The sight of the crucifix panicked the witch, allowing Gilman to twist the chain around her neck and choke her. During the struggle, Brown Jenkin bit his ankle before Gilman kicked the creature into the gulf.
To his horror, Gilman saw that while he had fought with the witch, Brown Jenkin had attacked the infant. The bowl on the floor now stood full beside the small lifeless body. In his delirium, Gilman heard the alien-rhythmed chant of the Sabbat and felt he needed to escape back to the normal world through the abysses.
The Aftermath and Gilman's Death
Gilman's terrible cry brought the other tenants rushing to his room. They found him alive but largely unconscious, with marks of hands on his throat and a rat-bite on his left ankle. His clothing was rumpled, and Mazurewicz's crucifix was missing. Dr. Malkowski was summoned and gave Gilman sedatives.
When Gilman regained consciousness, he tried to tell Elwood about his dream, but a new complication arose – he had gone completely deaf. The doctor determined that both his eardrums had been ruptured, as if by some incredibly intense sound that, strangely, no one else in the area had heard.
That night, Elwood was awakened by Gilman's inhuman screaming. A large rat-like form jumped from beneath the bloodstained bedclothes and scurried to a hole in the wall. When the doctor arrived and pulled back the covers, he found that Gilman was dead – something had eaten through his body and consumed his heart.
Epilogue: Later Discoveries in the House
After Gilman's death, the house was never rented again. In March 1931, a gale damaged the roof and chimney, causing debris to crash through the attic floor. When the building was finally razed in December, workers clearing Gilman's old room made disturbing discoveries.
Among the rubble were human bones of different ages – some belonging to a small child, others to an elderly woman. They also found fragments of books and papers dealing with black magic, and inexplicable objects of unknown purpose. One item resembled the strange spiky image Gilman had given to the college museum, though larger and made of bluish stone instead of metal.
The bones of the tiny paws, it is rumoured, imply prehensile characteristics more typical of a diminutive monkey than of a rat; while the small skull with its savage yellow fangs is of the utmost anomalousness, appearing... like a miniature, monstrously degraded parody of a human skull.
In the sealed triangular space behind the slanting wall, workers found a layer of children's bones of various ages, along with a large, ornate knife of ancient design. Most disturbing of all was the partially crushed skeleton of an abnormally large rat with peculiar characteristics. The tiny paws suggested prehensile abilities more like a monkey than a rat, and the skull resembled a degraded parody of a human skull. The workmen crossed themselves in fear but later lit candles of gratitude in church, believing they would never again hear the shrill, ghostly tittering that had haunted the accursed house.