Ex Oblivion - HP Lovecraft

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ex Oblivione by H. P. Lovecraft. When the last days
were upon me, and the ugly trifles of existence began
to drive me to madness, Like the small drops of
water the torture as that fall ceaselessly upon one spot
of their victim's body, I loved the irradiate refuge of

(00:21):
sleep in my dreams. I found a little of the
beauty I had vainly sought in life, and wandered through
old gardens and enchanted woods. Once, when the wind was
soft and scented, I heard the South calling, and sailed
endlessly and languorously under strange stars. Once, when the gentle

(00:43):
rain fell, I glided in a barge down a sunless
stream under the earth, till I reached another world of
purple twilight, iridescent arbors, and undying roses. And once I
walked through a golden valley that led to shadowy groves
and ruins, and ended in a mighty wall, green with

(01:04):
antique vines and pierced by a little gate of bronze.
Many times I walked through that valley, and longer and
longer would I pause in the spectral half light, where
the giant trees squirmed and twisted grotesquely, and the gray
ground stretched damply from trunk to trunk, sometimes disclosing the

(01:25):
mold stained stones of buried temples. And always the goal
of my fancies was the mighty vine grown wall, with
a little gate of bronze therein. After a while, as
the days of waking became less and less bearable from
their grayness and sameness, I would often drift in opiate
peace through the valley and the shadowy groves, and wonder

(01:49):
how I might seize them from my eternal dwelling place,
so that I need no more crawl back to a
dull world, stripped of interest and new colors. And as
I looked upon the little gate in the mighty wall,
I felt that beyond it lay a dream country from which,
once it was entered, there would be no return. So

(02:11):
each night in sleep I strove to find the hidden
latch of the gate in the ivied antique wall, though
it was exceedingly well hidden, and I would tell myself
that the round beyond the wall was not more lasting merely,
but more lovely and radiant as well. Then one night,
in the dream city of Zacarion, I found a yellowed

(02:33):
papyrus filled with the thoughts of dream stages, who dwelt
of old in that city, and who were too wise
ever to be borne in the waking world. Therein were
written many things concerning the world of dream, and among
them was law of a golden valley and a sacred
grove with temples and a high wall pierced by a

(02:56):
little bronze gate. When I saw this law, I knew
that it touched on the scenes I had haunted, and
I therefore read long in the yellowed papyrus. Some of
the dream sages wrote gorgeously of the wonders beyond the
irrepassable gait, and others told of horror and disappointment. I

(03:17):
knew not which to believe, yet longed more and more
to cross for ever into the unknown land. For doubt
and secrecy are the lure of lures, and no new
horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of
the commonplace. So when I learned of the drug which
would unlock the gate and drive me through, I resolved

(03:39):
to take it. When next I awaked last night, I
swallowed the drug and floated dreamily into the golden valley
and the shadowy groves and When I came this time
to the antique wall, I saw that the small gate
of bronze was ajar. From beyond came a glow that
weirdly lit the giant twist trees and the tops of

(04:01):
the buried temples. And I drifted on songfully expectant of
the glories of the land, whence I should never return.
But as the gate swung wider, and the sorcery of
the drug and the dream pushed me through, I knew
that all sights and glories were at an end. For
in that new realm was neither land nor sea, but

(04:24):
only the white void of unpeopled and illimitable space. So
happier than I had ever dared hope to be, I
dissolved again into that native infinity of crystal oblivion from
which the demon life had called me for one brief
and desolate hour, end of ex oblivione.