The Tomb

"The Tomb" is a fictional short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in June 1917 and first published in the March 1922 issue of The Vagrant. It tells the story of Jervas Dudley, who becomes obsessed with a mausoleum near his childhood home.

"The Tomb" tells of Jervas Dudley, a confessed daydreamer. While still a child, he discovers the padlocked entrance to a mausoleum belonging to the Hyde family, whose nearby mansion had burnt down many years previously. Jervas attempts to break the padlock, but is unable. Dispirited, he takes to sleeping beside the tomb. Eventually, inspired by reading Plutarch's Lives, Dudley decides to patiently wait until it is his time to gain entrance to the tomb.

One night, several years later, Jervas falls asleep once more beside the mausoleum. He awakes suddenly in the late afternoon, and fancies that as he awoke, a light had been hurriedly extinguished inside the tomb.