H.P. Lovecraft - The Temple

H.P. LOVECRAFT

THE TEMPLE

Written in 1920
First published in Weird Tales, September 1925

THE TEMPLE

MANUSCRIPT FOUND ON THE COAST OF YUCATAN

On August 20, 1917, I, Karl Heinrich, Graf von Altberg-Ehrenstein, Lieutenant-
Commander in the Imperial German Navy and in charge of the submarine U-29,
deposit this bottle and record in the Atlantic Ocean at a point to me unknown
but probably about N. Latitude 20 degrees, W. Longitude 35 degrees, where my
ship lies disabled on the ocean floor. I do so because of my desire to set
certain unusual facts before the public; a thing I shall not in all probability
survive to accomplish in person, since the circumstances surrounding me are as
menacing as they are extraordinary, and involve not only the hopeless crippling
of the U-29, but the impairment of my iron German will in a manner most
disastrous.

On the afternoon of June 18, as reported by wireless to the U-61, bound for
Kiel, we torpedoed the British freighter Victory, New York to Liverpool, in N.
Latitude 45 degrees 16 minutes, W. Longitude 28 degrees 34 minutes; permitting
the crew to leave in boats in order to obtain a good cinema view for the
admiralty records. The ship sank quite picturesquely, bow first, the stem
rising high out of the water whilst the hull shot down perpendicularly to the
bottom of the sea. Our camera missed nothing, and I regret that so fine a reel
of film should never reach Berlin. After that we sank the lifeboats with our
guns and submerged.

When we rose to the surface about sunset, a seaman's body was found on the
deck, hands gripping the railing in curious fashion. The poor fellow was young,
rather dark, and very handsome; probably an Italian or Greek, and undoubtedly
of the Victory's crew. He had evidently sought refuge on the very ship which
had been forced to destroy his own�one more victim of the unjust war of
aggression which the English pig-dogs are waging upon the Fatherland. Our men
searched him for souvenirs, and found in his coat pocket a very odd bit of
ivory carved to represent a youth's head crowned with laurel. My fellow-
officer, Lieutenant Kienze, believed that the thing was of great age and
artistic value, so took it from the men for himself. How it had ever come into
the possession of a common sailor neither he nor I could imagine.

As the dead man was thrown overboard there occurred two incidents which
created much disturbance amongst the crew. The fellow's eyes had been closed;
but in the dragging of his body to the rail they were jarred open, and many
seemed to entertain a queer delusion that they gazed steadily and mockingly at
Schmidt and Zimmer, who were bent over the corpse. The Boatswain Mueller, an
elderly man who would have known better had he not been a superstitious
Alsatian swine, became so excited by this impression that he watched the body
in the water; and swore that after it sank a little it drew its limbs into a
swimming position and sped away to the south under the waves. Kienze and I did
not like these displays of peasant ignorance, and severely reprimanded the men,
particularly Mueller.

The next day a very troublesome situation was created by the indisposition of
some of the crew. They were evidently suffering from the nervous strain of our
long voyage, and had had bad dreams. Several seemed quite dazed and stupid; and
after satisfying myself that they were not feigning their weakness, I excused
them from their duties. The sea was rather rough, so we descended to a depth
where the waves were less troublesome. Here we were comparatively calm, despite
a somewhat puzzling southward current which we could not identify from our
oceanographic charts. The moans of the sick men were decidedly annoying; but
since they did not appear to demoralize the rest of the crew, we did not resort
to extreme measures. It was our plan to remain where we were and intercept the
liner Dacia, mentioned in information from agents in New York.

In the early evening we rose to the surface, and found the sea less heavy. The
smoke of a battleship was on the northern horizon, but our distance and ability
to submerge made us safe. What worried us more was the talk of Boatswain
Mueller, which grew wilder as night came on. He was in a detestably childish
state, and babbled of some illusion of dead bodies drifting past the undersea
portholes; bodies which looked at him intensely, and which he recognized in
spite of bloating as having seen dying during some of our victorious German
exploits. And he said that the young man we had found and tossed overboard was
their leader. This was very gruesome and abnormal, so we confined Mueller in
irons and had him soundly whipped. The men were not pleased at his punishment,
but discipline was necessary. We also denied the request of a delegation headed
by Seaman Zimmer, that the curious carved ivory head be cast into the sea.

On June 20, Seaman Bohin and Schmidt, who had been ill the day before, became
violently insane. I regretted that no physician was included in our complement
of officers, since German lives are precious; but the constant ravings of the
two concerning a terrible curse were most subversive of discipline, so drastic
steps were taken. The crew accepted the event in a sullen fashion, but it
seemed to quiet Mueller; who thereafter gave us no trouble. In the evening we
released him, and he went about his duties silently.

In the week that followed we were all very nervous, watching for the Dacia.
The tension was aggravated by the disappearance of Mueller and Zimmer, who
undoubtedly committed suicide as a result of the fears which had seemed to
harass them, though they were not observed in the act of jumping overboard. I
was rather glad to be rid of Mueller, for even his silence had unfavorably
affected the crew. Everyone seemed inclined to be silent now, as though holding
a secret fear. Many were ill, but none made a disturbance. Lieutenant Kienze
chafed under the strain, and was annoyed by the merest trifle �such as the
school of dolphins which gathered about the U-29 in increasing numbers, and the
growing intensity of that southward current which was not on our chart.

It at length became apparent that we had missed the Dacia altogether. Such
failures are not uncommon, and we were more pleased than disappointed, since
our return to Wilhelmshaven was now in order. At noon June 28 we turned
northeastward, and despite some rather comical entanglements with the unusual
masses of dolphins, were soon under way.

The explosion in the engine room at 2 A.M. was wholly a surprise. No defect in
the machinery or carelessness in the men had been noticed, yet without warning
the ship was racked from end to end with a colossal shock. Lieutenant Kienze
hurried to the engine room, finding the fuel-tank and most of the mechanism
shattered, and Engineers Raabe and Schneider instantly killed. Our situation
had suddenly become grave indeed; for though the chemical air regenerators were
intact, and though we could use the devices for raising and submerging the ship
and opening the hatches as long as compressed air and storage batteries might
hold out, we were powerless to propel or guide the submarine. To seek rescue in
the life-boats would be to deliver ourselves into the hands of enemies
unreasonably embittered against our great German nation, and our wireless had
failed ever since the Victory affair to put us in touch with a fellow U-boat of
the Imperial Navy.

From the hour of the accident till July 2 we drifted constantly to the south,
almost without plans and encountering no vessel. Dolphins still encircled the U-
29, a somewhat remarkable circumstance considering the distance we had covered.
On the morning of July 2 we sighted a warship flying American colors, and the
men became very restless in their desire to surrender. Finally Lieutenant
Kienze had to shoot a seaman named Traube, who urged this un-German act with
especial violence. This quieted the crew for the time, and we submerged unseen.

The next afternoon a dense flock of sea-birds appeared from the south, and the
ocean began to heave ominously. Closing our hatches, we awaited developments
until we realized that we must either submerge or be swamped in the mounting
waves. Our air pressure and electricity were diminishing, and we wished to
avoid all unnecessary use of our slender mechanical resources; but in this case
there was no choice. We did not descend far, and when after several hours the
sea was calmer, we decided to return to the surface. Here, however, a new
trouble developed; for the ship failed to respond to our direction in spite of
all that the mechanics could do. As the men grew more frightened at this
undersea imprisonment, some of them began to mutter again about Lieutenant
Kienze's ivory image, but the sight of an automatic pistol calmed them. We kept
the poor devils as busy as we could, tinkering at the machinery even when we
knew it was useless.

Kienze and I usually slept at different times; and it was during my sleep,
about 5 A.M., July 4, that the general mutiny broke loose. The six remaining
pigs of seamen, suspecting that we were lost, had suddenly burst into a mad
fury at our refusal to surrender to the Yankee battleship two days before, and
were in a delirium of cursing and destruction. They roared like the animals
they were, and broke instruments and furniture indiscriminately; screaming
about such nonsense as the curse of the ivory image and the dark dead youth who
looked at them and swam away. Lieutenant Kienze seemed paralyzed and
inefficient, as one might expect of a soft, womanish Rhinelander. I shot all
six men, for it was necessary, and made sure that none remained alive.

We expelled the bodies through the double hatches and were alone in the U- 29.
Kienze seemed very nervous, and drank heavily. It was decided that we remain
alive as long as possible, using the large stock of provisions and chemical
supply of oxygen, none of which had suffered from the crazy antics of those
swine-hound seamen. Our compasses, depth gauges, and other delicate instruments
were ruined; so that henceforth our only reckoning would be guess work, based
on our watches, the calendar, and our apparent drift as judged by any objects
we might spy through the portholes or from the conning tower. Fortunately we
had storage batteries still capable of long use, both for interior lighting and
for the searchlight. We often cast a beam around the ship, but saw only
dolphins, swimming parallel to our own drifting course. I was scientifically
interested in those dolphins; for though the ordinary Delphinus delphis is a
cetacean mammal, unable to subsist without air, I watched one of the swimmers
closely for two hours, and did not see him alter his submerged condition.

With the passage of time Kienze and I decided that we were still drifting
south, meanwhile sinking deeper and deeper. We noted the marine fauna and
flora, and read much on the subject in the books I had carried with.me for
spare moments. I could not help observing, however, the inferior scientific
knowledge of my companion. His mind was not Prussian, but given to imaginings
and speculations which have no value. The fact of our coming death affected him
curiously, and he would frequently pray in remorse over the men, women, and
children we had sent to the bottom; forgetting that all things are noble which
serve the German state. After a time he became noticeably unbalanced, gazing
for hours at his ivory image and weaving fanciful stories of the lost and
forgotten things under the sea. Sometimes, as a psychological experiment, I
would lead him on in the wanderings, and listen to his endless poetical
quotations and tales of sunken ships. I was very sorry for him, for I dislike
to see a German suffer; but he was not a good man to die with. For myself I was
proud, knowing how the Fatherland would revere my memory and how my sons would
be taught to be men like me.

On August 9, we espied the ocean floor, and sent a powerful beam from the
searchlight over it. It was a vast undulating plain, mostly covered with
seaweed, and strewn with the shells of small mollusks. Here and there were
slimy objects of puzzling contour, draped with weeds and encrusted with
barnacles, which Kienze declared must be ancient ships lying in their graves.
He was puzzled by one thing, a peak of solid matter, protruding above the ocean-
bed nearly four feet at its apex; about two feet thick, with flat sides and
smooth upper surfaces which met at a very obtuse angle. I called the peak a bit
of outcropping rock, but Kienze thought he saw carvings on it. After a while he
began to shudder, and turned away from the scene. as if frightened; yet could
give no explanation save that he was overcome with the vastness, darkness,
remoteness, antiquity, and mystery of the oceanic abysses. His mind was tired,
but I am always a German, and was quick to notice two things: that the U-29 was
standing the deep-sea pressure splendidly, and that the peculiar dolphins were
still about us, even at a depth where the existence of high organisms is
considered impossible by most naturalists. That I had previously overestimated
our depth, I was sure; but none the less we must still have been deep enough to
make these phenomena remarkable. Our southward speed, as gauged by the ocean
floor, was about as I had estimated from the organisms passed at higher levels.

It was at 3:15 PM., August 12, that poor Kienze went wholly mad. He had been
in the conning tower using the searchlight when I saw him bound into the
library compartment where I sat reading, and his face at once betrayed him. I
will repeat here what he said, underlining the words he emphasized: "He is
calling! He is calling! I hear him! We must go!" As he spoke he took his ivory
image from the table, pocketed it, and seized my arm in an effort to drag me up
the companionway to the deck. In a moment I understood that he meant to open
the hatch and plunge with me into the water outside, a vagary of suicidal and
homicidal mania for which I was scarcely prepared. As I hung back and attempted
to soothe him he grew more violent, saying: "Come now �do not wait until later;
it is better to repent and be forgiven than to defy and be condemned." Then I
tried the opposite of the soothing plan, and told him he was mad�pitifully
demented. But he was unmoved, and cried: "If I am mad, it is mercy. May the
gods pity the man who in his callousness can remain sane to the hideous end!
Come and be mad whilst he still calls with mercy!"

This outburst seemed to relieve a pressure in his brain; for as he finished he
grew much milder, asking me to let him depart alone if I would not accompany
him. My course at once became clear. He was a German, but only a Rhinelander
and a commoner; and he was now a potentially dangerous madman. By complying
with his suicidal request I could immediately free myself from one who was no
longer a companion but a menace. I asked him to give me the ivory image before
he went, but this request brought from him such uncanny laughter that I did not
repeat it. Then I asked him if he wished to leave any keepsake or lock of hair
for his family in Germany in case I should be rescued, but again he gave me
that strange laugh. So as he climbed the ladder I went to the levers and,
allowing proper time-intervals, operated the machinery which sent him to his
death. After I saw that he was no longer in the boat I threw the searchlight
around the water in an effort to obtain a last glimpse of him since I wished to
ascertain whether the water-pressure would flatten him as it theoretically
should, or whether the body would be unaffected, like those extraordinary
dolphins. I did not, however, succeed in finding my late companion, for the
dolphins were massed thickly and obscuringly about the conning tower.

That evening I regretted that I had not taken the ivory image surreptitiously
from poor Kienze's pocket as he left, for the memory of it fascinated me. I
could not forget the youthful, beautiful head with its leafy crown, though I am
not by nature an artist. I was also sorry that I had no one with whom to
converse. Kienze, though not my mental equal, was much better than no one. I
did not sleep well that night, and wondered exactly when the end would come.
Surely, I had little enough chance of rescue.

The next day I ascended to the conning tower and commenced the customary
searchlight explorations. Northward the view was much the same as it had been
all the four days since we had sighted the bottom, but I perceived that the
drifting of the U-29 was less rapid. As I swung the beam around to the south, I
noticed that the ocean floor ahead fell away in a marked declivity, and bore
curiously regular blocks of stone in certain places, disposed as if in
accordance with definite patterns. The boat did not at once descend to match
the greater ocean depth, so I was soon forced to adjust the searchlight to cast
a sharply downward beam. Owing to the abruptness of the change a wire was
disconnected, which necessitated a delay of many minutes for repairs; but at
length the light streamed on again, flooding the marine valley below me.

I am not given to emotion of any kind, but my amazement was very great when I
saw what lay revealed in that electrical glow. And yet as one reared in the
best Kultur of Prussia, I should not have been amazed, for geology and
tradition alike tell us of great transpositions in oceanic and continental
areas. What I saw was an extended and elaborate array of ruined edifices; all
of magnificent though unclassified architecture, and in various stages of
preservation. Most appeared to be of marble, gleaming whitely in the rays of
the searchlight, and the general plan was of a large city at the bottom of a
narrow valley, with numerous isolated temples and villas on the steep slopes
above. Roofs were fallen and columns were broken, but there still remained an
air of immemorially ancient splendor which nothing could efface.

Confronted at last with the Atlantis I had formerly deemed largely a myth, I
was the most eager of explorers. At the bottom of that valley a river once had
flowed; for as I examined the scene more closely I beheld the remains of stone
and marble bridges and sea-walls, and terraces and embankments once verdant and
beautiful. In my enthusiasm I became nearly as idiotic and sentimental as poor
Kienze, and was very tardy in noticing that the southward current had ceased at
last, allowing the U-29 to settle slowly down upon the sunken city as an
airplane settles upon a town of the upper earth. I was slow, to, in realizing
that the school of unusual dolphins had vanished.

In about two hours the boat rested in a paved plaza close to the rocky wall of
the valley. On one side I could view the entire city as it sloped from the
plaza down to the old river-bank; on the other side, in startling proximity, I
was confronted by the richly ornate and perfectly preserved facade of a great
building, evidently a temple, hollowed from the solid rock. Of the original
workmanship of this titanic thing I can only make conjectures. The facade, of
immense magnitude, apparently covers a continuous hollow recess; for its
windows are many and widely distributed. In the center yawns a great open door,
reached by an impressive flight of steps, and surrounded by exquisite carvings
like the figures of Bacchanals in relief. Foremost of all are the great columns
and frieze, both decorated with sculptures of inexpressible beauty; obviously
portraying idealized pastoral scenes and processions of priests and priestesses
bearing strange ceremonial devices in adoration of a radiant god. The art is of
the most phenomenal perfection, largely Hellenic in idea, yet strangely
individual. It imparts an impression of terrible antiquity, as though it were
the remotest rather than the immediate ancestor of Greek art. Nor can I doubt
that every detail of this massive product was fashioned from the virgin
hillside rock of our planet. It is palpably a part of the valley wall, though
how the vast interior was ever excavated I cannot imagine. Perhaps a cavern or
series of caverns furnished the nucleus. Neither age nor submersion has
corroded the pristine grandeur of this awful fane�for fane indeed it must
be�and today after thousands of years it rests untarnished and inviolate in the
endless night and silence of an ocean-chasm.

I cannot reckon the number of hours I spent in gazing at the sunken city with
its buildings, arches, statues, and bridges, and the colossal temple with its
beauty and mystery. Though I knew that death was near, my curiosity was
consuming; and I threw the searchlight beam about in eager quest. The shaft of
light permitted me to learn many details, but refused to show anything within
the gaping door of the rock-hewn temple; and after a time I turned off the
current, conscious of the need of conserving power. The rays were now
perceptibly dimmer than they had been during the weeks of drifting. And as if
sharpened by the coming deprivation of light, my desire to explore the watery
secrets grew. I, a German, should be the first to tread those eon-forgotten
ways!

I produced and examined a deep-sea diving suit of jointed metal, and
experimented with the portable light and air regenerator. Though I should have
trouble in managing the double hatches alone, I believed I could overcome all
obstacles with my scientific skill and actually walk about the dead city in
person.

On August 16 I effected an exit from the U-29, and laboriously made my way
through the ruined and mud-choked streets to the ancient river. I found no
skeletons or other human remains, but gleaned a wealth of archeological lore
from sculptures and coins. Of this I cannot now speak save to utter my awe at a
culture in the full noon of glory when cave-dwellers roamed Europe and the Nile
flowed unwatched to the sea. Others, guided by this manuscript if it shall ever
be found, must unfold the mysteries at which I can only hint. I returned to the
boat as my electric batteries grew feeble, resolved to explore the rock temple
on the following day.

On the 17th, as my impulse to search out the mystery of the temple waxed still
more insistent, a great disappointment befell me; for I found that the
materials needed to replenish the portable light had perished in the mutiny of
those pigs in July. My rage was unbounded, yet my German sense forbade me to
venture unprepared into an utterly black interior which might prove the lair of
some indescribable marine monster or a labyrinth of passages from whose
windings I could never extricate myself. All I could do was to turn on the
waning searchlight of the U-29, and with its aid walk up the temple steps and
study the exterior carvings. The shaft of light entered the door at an upward
angle, and I peered in to see if I could glimpse anything, but all in vain. Not
even the roof was visible; and though I took a step or two inside after testing
the floor with a staff, I dared not go farther. Moreover, for the first time in
my life I experienced the emotion of dread. I began to realize how some of poor
Kienze's moods had arisen, for as the temple drew me more and more, I feared
its aqueous abysses with a blind and mounting terror. Returning to the
submarine, I turned off the lights and sat thinking in the dark. Electricity
must now be saved for emergencies.

Saturday the 18th I spent in total darkness, tormented by thoughts and
memories that threatened to overcome my German will. Kienze bad gone mad and
perished before reaching this sinister remnant of a past unwholesomely remote,
and had advised me to go with him. Was, indeed, Fate preserving my reason only
to draw me irresistibly to an end more horrible and unthinkable than any man
has dreamed of? Clearly, my nerves were sorely taxed, and I must cast off these
impressions of weaker men.

I could not sleep Saturday night, and turned on the lights regardless of the
future. It was annoying that the electricity should not last out the air and
provisions. I revived my thoughts of euthanasia, and examined my automatic
pistol. Toward morning I must have dropped asleep with the lights on, for I
awoke in darkness yesterday afternoon to find the batteries dead. I struck
several matches in succession, and desperately regretted the improvidence which
had caused us long ago to use up the few candles we carried.

After the fading of the last match I dared to waste, I sat very quietly
without a light. As I considered the inevitable end my mind ran over preceding
events, and developed a hitherto dormant impression which would have caused a
weaker and more superstitious man to shudder. The head of the radiant god in
the sculptures on the rock temple is the same as that carven bit of ivory which
the dead sailor brought from the sea and which poor Kienze carried back into
the sea.

I was a little dazed by this coincidence, but did not become terrified. It is
only the inferior thinker who hastens to explain the singular and the complex
by the primitive shortcut of supernaturalism. The coincidence was strange, but
I was too sound a reasoner to connect circumstances which admit of no logical
connection, or to associate in any uncanny fashion the disastrous events which
had led from the Victory affair to my present plight. Feeling the need of more
rest, I took a sedative and secured some more sleep. My nervous condition was
reflected in my dreams, for I seemed to hear the cries of drowning persons, and
to see dead faces pressing against the portholes of the boat. And among the
dead faces was the living, mocking face of the youth with the ivory image.

I must be careful how I record my awakening today, for I am unstrung, and much
hallucination is necessarily mixed with fact. Psychologically my case is most
interesting, and I regret that it cannot be observed scientifically by a
competent German authority. Upon opening my eyes my first sensation was an
overmastering desire to visit the rock temple; a desire which grew every
instant, yet which I automatically sought to resist through some emotion of
fear which operated in the reverse direction. Next there came to me the
impression of light amidst the darkness of dead batteries, and I seemed to see
a sort of phosphorescent glow in the water through the porthole which opened
toward the temple. This aroused my curiosity, for I knew of no deep-sea
organism capable of emitting such luminosity.

But before I could investigate there came a third impression which because of
its irrationality caused me to doubt the objectivity of anything my senses
might record. It was an aural delusion; a sensation of rhythmic, melodic sound
as of some wild yet beautiful chant or choral hymn, coming from the outside
through the absolutely sound-proof hull of the U-29. Convinced of my
psychological and nervous abnormality, I lighted some matches and poured a
stiff dose of sodium bromide solution, which seemed to calm me to the extent of
dispelling the illusion of sound. But the phosphorescence remained, and I had
difficulty in repressing a childish impulse to go to the porthole and seek its
source. It was horribly realistic, and I could soon distinguish by its aid the
familiar objects around me, as well as the empty sodium bromide glass of which
I had had no former visual impression in its present location. This last
circumstance made me ponder, and I crossed the room and touched the glass. It
was indeed in the place where I had seemed to see it. Now I knew that the light
was either real or part of an hallucination so fixed and consistent that I
could not hope to dispel it, so abandoning all resistance I ascended to the
conning tower to look for the luminous agency. Might it not actually be another
U-boat, offering possibilities of rescue?

It is well that the reader accept nothing which follows as objective truth,
for since the events transcend natural law, they are necessarily the subjective
and unreal creations of my overtaxed mind. When I attained the conning tower I
found the sea in general far less luminous than I had expected. There was no
animal or vegetable phosphorescence about, and the city that sloped down to the
river was invisible in blackness. What I did see was not spectacular, not
grotesque or terrifying, yet it removed my last vestige of trust in my
consciousness. For the door and windows of the undersea temple hewn from the
rocky hill were vividly aglow with a flickering radiance, as from a mighty
altar-flame far within.

Later incidents are chaotic. As I stared at the uncannily lighted door and
windows, I became subject to the most extravagant visions�visions so
extravagant that I cannot even relate them. I fancied that I discerned objects
in the temple; objects both stationary and moving; and seemed to hear again the
unreal chant that had floated to me when first I awaked. And over all rose
thoughts and fears which centered in the youth from the sea and the ivory image
whose carving was duplicated on the frieze and columns of the temple before me.
I thought of poor Kienze, and wondered where his body rested with the image he
had carried back into the sea. He had warned me of something, and I had not
heeded�but he was a soft-headed Rhinelander who went mad at troubles a Prussian
could bear with ease.

The rest is very simple. My impulse to visit and enter the temple has now
become an inexplicable and imperious command which ultimately cannot be denied.
My own German will no longer controls my acts, and volition is henceforward
possible only in minor matters. Such madness it was which drove Kienze to his
death, bare-headed and unprotected in the ocean; but I am a Prussian and a man
of sense, and will use to the last what little will I have. When first I saw
that I must go, I prepared my diving suit, helmet, and air regenerator for
instant donning, and immediately commenced to write this hurried chronicle in
the hope that it may some day reach the world. I shall seal the manuscript in a
bottle and entrust it to the sea as I leave the U-29 for ever.

I have no fear, not even from the prophecies of the madman Kienze. What I have
seen cannot be true, and I know that this madness of my own will at most lead
only to suffocation when my air is gone. The light in the temple is a sheer
delusion, and I shall die calmly like a German, in the black and forgotten
depths. This demoniac laughter which I hear as I write comes only from my own
weakening brain. So I will carefully don my suit and walk boldly up the steps
into the primal shrine, that silent secret of unfathomed waters and uncounted
years.

THE END