The Terrible Old Man (1920) Time to kick off with a weak story from Lovecraft that also nicely portrays his xenophobic and racist tendencies. In the small town of Kingsport, a trio of immigrant criminals are stalking outside of a house of an old sea captain. The man, so old that no one can remember the day he was young, lives alone in a house rumoured to be filled with riches from his sea days, so the three men see him as an easy target.Two of the men, Ricci and Silva, head into the house. Their aim is to persuade the man to divulge his secret stash to them and the 3rd man, Czanek waits for them outside by the car, ready to speed them all off with the loot.
But little do the three men know, that the captain has a secret is not what they think it is. In his house, he has bottles, closed with pendulums hanging in them. To these bottles, the old man speaks and some have heard whispers answering back at him.
After an hour or so, Czanek finally hears sounds coming from behind the fence of the house. He expects his accomplices to emerge from the gate, but instead, it is the old man, who steers his gaze at him, smiling sinisterly.
Later, three mutilated corpses are found from the seaside, cut in pieces with cutlasses. The people of the town don't know them and gossip about them for a while. The only one who cares little about the gossip is the old captain.
Even without the very apparent racial element of the story, The Terrible Old Man is a poorly penned story. While it has a decent idea behind it, three crooks aiming to rob a seemingly feeble man who ends up killing them all, the narrative comes out as lazy and even sloppy. The gist of it seems to be more about Lovecraft being against strange people invading the homes of pure people more than in an actual attempt at doing horror. In a way, you could call it a lazy piece of propaganda.
The Tree (1920) Now this is an odd one. Mostly because you can almost read it as a piece of homoerotic fantasy. I know, that doesn't sound like something old Lovecraft would have written, not intentionally at least, but perhaps it was a subconscious slip from him when he was writing this romantic tale of two sculptors competing in creating the perfect statue of Tyché.
The sculptors, Kalos and Musides, are both commissioned to the job by the Tyran of Syracuse. He wanted both of the men on the job as he figured that two renowned sculptors would do their best to outdo as well as help each other and in the end, he would get two magnificent statues. During the work, Kalos falls ill and Musides weeps this greatly, promising to carve him a magnificent sepulchre from marble. The only thing Kalos wants to his grave is an olive branch from his favourite olive tree he used to sit under in contemplation. After Kalos dies, Musides takes twigs from his dead friends garden and plants them at his grave. Soon they grow into a large olive tree, faster than anyone could believe.
Three years later, Musides informs the Tyrant, that the statue is ready. When his agents come to see the statue, they find his house crushed by a huge branch fallen from the olive tree near the grave of Kalos. The statue of Tyché is broken as well and Musides is nowhere to be seen.
The Tree really is an odd story, considering the writer. While it has fantastical horror elements in it, the tone is far from it. It reads more like a story of two men, friends and colleagues who can't be separated even the death of one. In many ways, it reads like a romance story. And perhaps there wasn't anything subconscious about the story at all, as the tree ends up resembling a frighteningly distorted old man. Maybe this story really is Lovecraft's masked way of telling homosexuals what he believes becomes of them.
The Cats of Ulthar (1920) It's well known that Lovecraft liked cats. He had several of them, some of which he named less than gracefully. He had a black cat whose name you can probably deduce considering his personality. But this story has nothing to do with that.
There is a law in the city of UIthar that states that no cat in the city is to be killed. The reason for the law is thus: ages back, there was an old couple who hated cats. They used to trap them and kill them if they entered their property. The people, while they didn't like that the couple were killing cats, were too afraid of doing anything to the matter, so they let it slide.
One night, a caravan from a distant land arrives at Ulthr, bringing with it a young orphan Menes, who had a little kitten with him. The kitten is his only company and he loved it dearly. On the third day, the kitten goes missing and Menes soon hears tales of the couple who hates cats. The boy prays for a deity and the clouds in the sky reshape. And in the evening, the caravan leaves, taking the boy with it.
But with the caravan, so do the cats of Ulthar disappear. The people suspect the old couple and the travellers as well, only the innkeeper's son states he had seen the cats circling the house of the old couple. The next morning though, the cats return and refuse to eat, as they all seem to be well fed.
Days later, the people notice that they have not seen the old couple for a while. Grudgingly they investigate their abode only to find two clean picked skeletons. And thus was passed the law, that no cat can be killed in the city of Ulthar.
While the story is almost anecdotical in nature, it is well-written. I would hesitate to call it a horror story, as it has a very specific atmosphere that comes out more like a fairytale. This isn't the first time Lovecraft has written in this kind of a style, but in his other pieces like this, there has been an undercurrent of melancholy which is absent here.
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