The King in Yellow
of the afternoon to undo the damage I had done, so at last I scraped
my palette, stuck my brushes in a bowl of black soap, and strolled
into the smoking-room. I really believe that, excepting Geneviève’s
apartments, no room in the house was so free from the perfume of
tobacco as this one. It was a queer chaos of odds and ends, hung with
threadbare tapestry. A sweet-toned old spinet in good repair stood by
the window. There were stands of weapons, some old and dull, others
bright and modern, festoons of Indian and Turkish armour over the
mantel, two or three good pictures, and a pipe-rack. It was here that
we used to come for new sensations in smoking. I doubt if any type of
pipe ever existed which was not represented in that rack. When we had
selected one, we immediately carried it somewhere else and smoked it;
for the place was, on the whole, more gloomy and less inviting than any
in the house. But this afternoon, the twilight was very soothing, the
rugs and skins on the floor looked brown and soft and drowsy; the big
couch was piled with cushions—I found my pipe and curled up there for
an unaccustomed smoke in the smoking-room. I had chosen one with a long
flexible stem, and lighting it fell to dreaming. After a while it went
out, but I did not stir. I dreamed on and presently fell asleep.
I awoke to the saddest music I had ever heard. The room was quite dark,
I had no idea what time it was. A ray of moonlight silvered one edge
of the old spinet, and the polished wood seemed to exhale the sounds
as perfume floats above a box of sandalwood. Some one rose in the
darkness, and came away weeping quietly, and I was fool enough to cry
out “Geneviève!”
She dropped at my voice, and, I had time to curse myself while I made
a light and tried to raise her from the floor. She shrank away with a
murmur of pain. She was very quiet, and asked for Boris. I carried her
to the divan, and went to look for him, but he was not in the house,
and the servants were gone to bed. Perplexed and anxious, I hurried
back to Geneviève. She lay where I had left her, looking very white.
“I can’t find Boris nor any of the servants,” I said.
“I know,” she answered faintly, “Boris has gone to Ept with Mr. Scott.
I did not remember when I sent you for him just now.”
“But he can’t get back in that case before to-morrow afternoon,
and—are you hurt? Did I frighten you into falling? What an awful fool
I am, but I was only half awake.”
“Boris thought you had gone home before dinner. Do please excuse us for
letting you stay here all this time.”
“I have had a long nap,” I laughed, “so sound that I did not know
whether I was still asleep or not when I found myself staring at a
figure that was moving toward me, and called out your name. Have you
been trying the old spinet? You must have played very softly.”
I would tell a thousand more lies worse than that one to see the look
of relief that came into her face. She smiled adorably, and said in her
natural voice: “Alec, I tripped on that wolf’s head, and I think my
ankle is sprained. Please call Marie, and then go home.”
I did as she bade me, and left her there when the maid came in.
III
At noon next day when I called, I found Boris walking restlessly about
his studio.
“Geneviève is asleep just now,” he told me, “the sprain is nothing, but
why should she have such a high fever? The doctor can’t account for it;
or else he will not,” he muttered.
“Geneviève has a fever?” I asked.
“I should say so, and has actually been a little light-headed at
intervals all night. The idea!—gay little Geneviève, without a care in
the world,—and she keeps saying her heart’s broken, and she wants to
die!”
My own heart stood still.
Boris leaned against the door of his studio, looking down, his hands
in his pockets, his kind, keen eyes clouded, a new line of trouble
drawn “over the mouth’s good mark, that made the smile.” The maid had
orders to summon him the instant Geneviève opened her eyes. We waited
and waited, and Boris, growing restless, wandered about, fussing with
modelling wax and red clay. Suddenly he started for the next room.
“Come and see my rose-coloured bath full of death!” he cried.
“Is it death?” I asked, to humour his mood.
“You are not prepared to call it life, I suppose,” he answered. As
he spoke he plucked a solitary gold-fish squirming and twisting out
of its globe. “We’ll send this one after the other—wherever that
is,” he said. There was feverish excitement in his voice. A dull
weight of fever lay on my limbs and on my brain as I followed him to
the fair crystal pool with its pink-tinted sides; and he dropped the
creature in. Falling, its scales flashed with a hot orange gleam in
its angry twistings and contortions; the moment it struck the liquid
it became rigid and sank heavily to the bottom. Then came the milky
foam, the splendid hues radiating on the surface and then the shaft
of pure serene light broke through from seemingly infinite depths.
Boris plunged in his hand and drew out an exquisite marble thing,
blue-veined, rose-tinted, and glistening with opalescent drops.
“Child’s play,” he muttered, and looked wearily, longingly at me,—as
if I could answer such questions! But Jack Scott came in and entered
into the “game,” as he called it, with ardour. Nothing would do but to
try the experiment on the white rabbit then and there. I was willing
that Boris should find distraction from his cares, but I hated to
see the life go out of a warm, living creature and I declined to be
present. Picking up a book at random, I sat down in the studio to read.
Alas! I had found _The King in Yellow_. After a few moments, which
seemed ages, I was putting it away with a nervous shudder, when Boris
and Jack came in bringing their marble rabbit. At the same time the
bell rang above, and a cry came from the sick-room. Boris was gone like
a flash, and the next moment he called, “Jack, run for the doctor;
bring him back with you. Alec, come here.”
I went and stood at her door. A frightened maid came out in haste and
ran away to fetch some remedy. Geneviève, sitting bolt upright, with
crimson cheeks and glittering eyes, babbled incessantly and resisted
Boris’ gentle restraint. He called me to help. At my first touch she
sighed and sank back, closing her eyes, and then—then—as we still
bent above her, she opened them again, looked straight into Boris’
face—poor fever-crazed girl!—and told her secret. At the same instant
our three lives turned into new channels; the bond that held us so
long together snapped for ever and a new bond was forged in its place,
for she had spoken my name, and as the fever tortured her, her heart
poured out its load of hidden sorrow. Amazed and dumb I bowed my head,
while my face burned like a live coal, and the blood surged in my
ears, stupefying me with its clamour. Incapable of movement, incapable
of speech, I listened to her feverish words in an agony of shame and
sorrow. I could not silence her, I could not look at Boris. Then I felt
an arm upon my shoulder, and Boris turned a bloodless face to mine.
“It is not your fault, Alec; don’t grieve so if she loves you—” but
he could not finish; and as the doctor stepped swiftly into the room,
saying—“Ah, the fever!” I seized Jack Scott and hurried him to the
street, saying, “Boris would rather be alone.” We crossed the street
to our own apartments, and that night, seeing I was going to be ill
too, he went for the doctor again. The last thing I recollect with any
distinctness was hearing Jack say, “For Heaven’s sake, doctor, what
ails him, to wear a face like that?” and I thought of _The King in
Yellow_ and the Pallid Mask.
I was very ill, for the strain of two years which I had endured since
that fatal May morning when Geneviève murmured, “I love you, but I
think I love Boris best,” told on me at last. I had never imagined that
it could become more than I could endure. Outwardly tranquil, I had
deceived myself. Although the inward battle raged night after night,
and I, lying alone in my room, cursed myself for rebellious thoughts
unloyal to Boris and unworthy of Geneviève, the morning always brought
relief, and I returned to Geneviève and to my dear Boris with a heart
washed clean by the tempests of the night.
Never in word or deed or thought while with them had I betrayed my
sorrow even to myself.
The mask of self-deception was no longer a mask for me, it was a part
of me. Night lifted it, laying bare the stifled truth below; but there
was no one to see except myself, and when the day broke the mask fell
back again of its own accord. These thoughts passed through my troubled
mind as I lay sick, but they were hopelessly entangled with visions of
white creatures, heavy as stone, crawling about in Boris’ basin,—of
the wolf’s head on the rug, foaming and snapping at Geneviève, who
lay smiling beside it. I thought, too, of the King in Yellow wrapped
in the fantastic colours of his tattered mantle, and that bitter
cry of Cassilda, “Not upon us, oh King, not upon us!” Feverishly I
struggled to put it from me, but I saw the lake of Hali, thin and
blank, without a ripple or wind to stir it, and I saw the towers of
Carcosa behind the moon. Aldebaran, the Hyades, Alar, Hastur, glided
through the cloud-rifts which fluttered and flapped as they passed
like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow. Among all these,
one sane thought persisted. It never wavered, no matter what else was
going on in my disordered mind, that my chief reason for existing was
to meet some requirement of Boris and Geneviève. What this obligation
was, its nature, was never clear; sometimes it seemed to be protection,
sometimes support, through a great crisis. Whatever it seemed to be
for the time, its weight rested only on me, and I was never so ill or
so weak that I did not respond with my whole soul. There were always
crowds of faces about me, mostly strange, but a few I recognized, Boris
among them. Afterward they told me that this could not have been, but I
know that once at least he bent over me. It was only a touch, a faint
echo of his voice, then the clouds settled back on my senses, and I
lost him, but he _did_ stand there and bend over me _once_ at least.
At last, one morning I awoke to find the sunlight falling across my
bed, and Jack Scott reading beside me. I had not strength enough to
speak aloud, neither could I think, much less remember, but I could
smile feebly, as Jack’s eye met mine, and when he jumped up and asked
eagerly if I wanted anything, I could whisper, “Yes—Boris.” Jack moved
to the head of my bed, and leaned down to arrange my pillow: I did not
see his face, but he answered heartily, “You must wait, Alec; you are
too weak to see even Boris.”
I waited and I grew strong; in a few days I was able to see whom I
would, but meanwhile I had thought and remembered. From the moment
when all the past grew clear again in my mind, I never doubted what I
should do when the time came, and I felt sure that Boris would have
resolved upon the same course so far as he was concerned; as for what
pertained to me alone, I knew he would see that also as I did. I no
longer asked for any one. I never inquired why no message came from
them; why during the week I lay there, waiting and growing stronger, I
never heard their name spoken. Preoccupied with my own searchings for
the right way, and with my feeble but determined fight against despair,
I simply acquiesced in Jack’s reticence, taking for granted that he was
afraid to speak of them, lest I should turn unruly and insist on seeing
them. Meanwhile I said over and over to myself, how would it be when
life began again for us all? We would take up our relations exactly