The Music of Erich Zann

"The Music of Erich Zann" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in December 1921, it was first published in National Amateur, March 1922.

Due to lack of funds, a university student is forced to take up lodging in an almost empty apartment building on a street named "Rue d'Auseil". One of the few other tenants is an old German man named Erich Zann. The old man is mute and plays the viol[a] with a local theater orchestra. He lives alone on the top floor and at night he plays strange melodies the student has never heard before. Despite Zann's dissatisfaction with his own music, the student invites himself to hear Zann play at his room. While watching the first night, the student's curiosity attracts him to the window of the room, which is the only window that can oversee the wall at the end of the mysterious street. Zann seems disturbed to discover that the student is able to hear his melody from his room and asks the student in a friendly manner to move to a lower floor where he won't hear Zann's music, only to return the next day to his antisocial behavior once the student has moved...