The Temple Summary

The story opens up with a man by the name of, Karl Heinrich, who was a Lieutenant-Commander in the Imperial German Navy, and in charge of a submarine, stating that he is writing this message in a bottle and praying it reaches to someone. He begins by telling of how he and his crew had recently sunk a British freighter called the “Victory” and come across the floating corpse of one of its sailors who had in his pocket a “odd bit of ivory that was carved to represent a youth’s head with laurel”. Some of crew notice that the man’s eyes had twitched like as if he were alive, and later causes some of the crewmen to act strange.

The following day one of the crew members who had become ill, went violently mad. During this time the engines of the sub had exploded, causing the fuel to leak out the submarine to drop down and drift aimlessly in the ocean. More of the men continue to go mad until there are only two men left, Heinrich and Lt. Klenze, who had been holding onto the ivory. Unfortunately for Heinrich, Klenze inevitably goes crazy, screaming that “He is calling!”, and in his madness, urges for him and Heinrich to kill themselves by leaving the sub before they are “condemned”. Heinrich refuses, leading to Klenze leaving the sub on his own, with the ivory. Alone with limited power, Heinrich’s sub comes across what could only be described as an ancient temple with carvings of a language that he does not understand. Henrich later sees a light glowing from inside the temple, which later causes his to see indescribable visions that “transcend natural law”. With no light left in the submarine, Heinrich ends his message with him saying that he could no longer resist the temptation of putting on the diving suit and see the temple while he experienced hearing mad laughter that he could only believe was coming from his own weakening brain.