The King in Yellow Read online

  III

  At noon next day when I called, I found Boris walking restlessly abouthis studio.

  "Genevieve is asleep just now," he told me, "the sprain is nothing, butwhy should she have such a high fever? The doctor can't account for it;or else he will not," he muttered.

  "Genevieve has a fever?" I asked.

  "I should say so, and has actually been a little light-headed atintervals all night. The idea! gay little Genevieve, without a care inthe world,--and she keeps saying her heart's broken, and she wants todie!"

  My own heart stood still.

  Boris leaned against the door of his studio, looking down, his hands inhis 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 tosummon him the instant Genevieve opened her eyes. We waited and waited,and Boris, growing restless, wandered about, fussing with modelling waxand red clay. Suddenly he started for the next room. "Come and see myrose-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 hespoke he plucked a solitary goldfish squirming and twisting out of itsglobe. "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 onmy limbs and on my brain as I followed him to the fair crystal pool withits pink-tinted sides; and he dropped the creature in. Falling, itsscales flashed with a hot orange gleam in its angry twistings andcontortions; the moment it struck the liquid it became rigid and sankheavily to the bottom. Then came the milky foam, the splendid huesradiating on the surface and then the shaft of pure serene light brokethrough from seemingly infinite depths. Boris plunged in his hand anddrew out an exquisite marble thing, blue-veined, rose-tinted, andglistening with opalescent drops.

  "Child's play," he muttered, and looked wearily, longingly at me,--as ifI could answer such questions! But Jack Scott came in and entered intothe "game," as he called it, with ardour. Nothing would do but to try theexperiment on the white rabbit then and there. I was willing that Borisshould find distraction from his cares, but I hated to see the life goout of a warm, living creature and I declined to be present. Picking up abook 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 wasputting it away with a nervous shudder, when Boris and Jack came inbringing their marble rabbit. At the same time the bell rang above, and acry came from the sick-room. Boris was gone like a flash, and the nextmoment 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 ranaway to fetch some remedy. Genevieve, sitting bolt upright, with crimsoncheeks and glittering eyes, babbled incessantly and resisted Boris'gentle restraint. He called me to help. At my first touch she sighed andsank back, closing her eyes, and then--then--as we still bent above her,she opened them again, looked straight into Boris' face--poorfever-crazed girl!--and told her secret. At the same instant our threelives turned into new channels; the bond that held us so long togethersnapped for ever and a new bond was forged in its place, for she hadspoken my name, and as the fever tortured her, her heart poured out itsload of hidden sorrow. Amazed and dumb I bowed my head, while my faceburned like a live coal, and the blood surged in my ears, stupefying mewith its clamour. Incapable of movement, incapable of speech, I listenedto her feverish words in an agony of shame and sorrow. I could notsilence her, I could not look at Boris. Then I felt an arm upon myshoulder, and Boris turned a bloodless face to mine.

  "It is not your fault, Alec; don't grieve so if she loves you--" but hecould not finish; and as the doctor stepped swiftly into the room,saying--"Ah, the fever!" I seized Jack Scott and hurried him to thestreet, saying, "Boris would rather be alone." We crossed the street toour own apartments, and that night, seeing I was going to be ill too, hewent for the doctor again. The last thing I recollect with anydistinctness was hearing Jack say, "For Heaven's sake, doctor, what ailshim, to wear a face like that?" and I thought of _The King inYellow_ and the Pallid Mask.

  I was very ill, for the strain of two years which I had endured sincethat fatal May morning when Genevieve murmured, "I love you, but I thinkI love Boris best," told on me at last. I had never imagined that itcould become more than I could endure. Outwardly tranquil, I had deceivedmyself. Although the inward battle raged night after night, and I, lyingalone in my room, cursed myself for rebellious thoughts unloyal to Borisand unworthy of Genevieve, the morning always brought relief, and Ireturned to Genevieve and to my dear Boris with a heart washed clean bythe tempests of the night.

  Never in word or deed or thought while with them had I betrayed my sorroweven to myself.

  The mask of self-deception was no longer a mask for me, it was a part ofme. Night lifted it, laying bare the stifled truth below; but there wasno one to see except myself, and when the day broke the mask fell backagain of its own accord. These thoughts passed through my troubled mindas I lay sick, but they were hopelessly entangled with visions of whitecreatures, heavy as stone, crawling about in Boris' basin,--of the wolf'shead on the rug, foaming and snapping at Genevieve, who lay smilingbeside it. I thought, too, of the King in Yellow wrapped in the fantasticcolours of his tattered mantle, and that bitter cry of Cassilda, "Notupon 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 tostir it, and I saw the towers of Carcosa behind the moon. Aldebaran, theHyades, Alar, Hastur, glided through the cloud-rifts which fluttered andflapped as they passed like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow.Among all these, one sane thought persisted. It never wavered, no matterwhat else was going on in my disordered mind, that my chief reason forexisting was to meet some requirement of Boris and Genevieve. What thisobligation was, its nature, was never clear; sometimes it seemed to beprotection, sometimes support, through a great crisis. Whatever it seemedto be for the time, its weight rested only on me, and I was never so illor so weak that I did not respond with my whole soul. There were alwayscrowds of faces about me, mostly strange, but a few I recognized, Borisamong them. Afterward they told me that this could not have been, but Iknow that once at least he bent over me. It was only a touch, a faintecho of his voice, then the clouds settled back on my senses, and I losthim, 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 speakaloud, neither could I think, much less remember, but I could smilefeebly, as Jack's eye met mine, and when he jumped up and asked eagerlyif I wanted anything, I could whisper, "Yes--Boris." Jack moved to thehead of my bed, and leaned down to arrange my pillow: I did not see hisface, but he answered heartily, "You must wait, Alec; you are too weak tosee 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 thepast grew clear again in my mind, I never doubted what I should do whenthe time came, and I felt sure that Boris would have resolved upon thesame course so far as he was concerned; as for what pertained to mealone, I knew he would see that also as I did. I no longer asked for anyone. I never inquired why no message came from them; why during the weekI lay there, waiting and growing stronger, I never heard their namespoken. Preoccupied with my own searchings for the right way, and with myfeeble but determined fight against despair, I simply acquiesced inJack'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 saidover and over to myself, how would it be when life began again for usall? We would take up our relations exactly as they were before Genevievefell ill. Boris and I would look into each other's eyes, and there wouldbe neither rancour nor cowardice nor mistrust in that glance. I would bewith them again for a little while in the dear intimacy of their home,and then, wi
thout pretext or explanation, I would disappear from theirlives for ever. Boris would know; Genevieve--the only comfort was thatshe would never know. It seemed, as I thought it over, that I had foundthe meaning of that sense of obligation which had persisted all throughmy delirium, and the only possible answer to it. So, when I was quiteready, I beckoned Jack to me one day, and said--

  "Jack, I want Boris at once; and take my dearest greeting toGenevieve...."

  When at last he made me understand that they were both dead, I fell intoa wild rage that tore all my little convalescent strength to atoms. Iraved and cursed myself into a relapse, from which I crawled forth someweeks afterward a boy of twenty-one who believed that his youth was gonefor ever. I seemed to be past the capability of further suffering, andone day when Jack handed me a letter and the keys to Boris' house, I tookthem without a tremor and asked him to tell me all. It was cruel of me toask him, but there was no help for it, and he leaned wearily on his thinhands, to reopen the wound which could never entirely heal. He began veryquietly--

  "Alec, unless you have a clue that I know nothing about, you will not beable to explain any more than I what has happened. I suspect that youwould rather not hear these details, but you must learn them, else Iwould spare you the relation. God knows I wish I could be spared thetelling. I shall use few words.

  "That day when I left you in the doctor's care and came back to Boris, Ifound him working on the 'Fates.' Genevieve, he said, was sleeping underthe influence of drugs. She had been quite out of her mind, he said. Hekept on working, not talking any more, and I watched him. Before long, Isaw that the third figure of the group--the one looking straight ahead,out over the world--bore his face; not as you ever saw it, but as itlooked then and to the end. This is one thing for which I should like tofind an explanation, but I never shall.

  "Well, he worked and I watched him in silence, and we went on that wayuntil nearly midnight. Then we heard the door open and shut sharply, anda swift rush in the next room. Boris sprang through the doorway and Ifollowed; but we were too late. She lay at the bottom of the pool, herhands across her breast. Then Boris shot himself through the heart." Jackstopped speaking, drops of sweat stood under his eyes, and his thincheeks twitched. "I carried Boris to his room. Then I went back and letthat hellish fluid out of the pool, and turning on all the water, washedthe marble clean of every drop. When at length I dared descend the steps,I found her lying there as white as snow. At last, when I had decidedwhat was best to do, I went into the laboratory, and first emptied thesolution in the basin into the waste-pipe; then I poured the contents ofevery jar and bottle after it. There was wood in the fire-place, so Ibuilt a fire, and breaking the locks of Boris' cabinet I burnt everypaper, notebook and letter that I found there. With a mallet from thestudio I smashed to pieces all the empty bottles, then loading them intoa coal-scuttle, I carried them to the cellar and threw them over thered-hot bed of the furnace. Six times I made the journey, and at last,not a vestige remained of anything which might again aid in seeking forthe formula which Boris had found. Then at last I dared call the doctor.He is a good man, and together we struggled to keep it from the public.Without him I never could have succeeded. At last we got the servantspaid and sent away into the country, where old Rosier keeps them quietwith stones of Boris' and Genevieve's travels in distant lands, fromwhence they will not return for years. We buried Boris in the littlecemetery of Sevres. The doctor is a good creature, and knows when to pitya man who can bear no more. He gave his certificate of heart disease andasked no questions of me."

  Then, lifting his head from his hands, he said, "Open the letter, Alec;it is for us both."

  I tore it open. It was Boris' will dated a year before. He lefteverything to Genevieve, and in case of her dying childless, I was totake control of the house in the Rue Sainte-Cecile, and Jack Scott themanagement at Ept. On our deaths the property reverted to his mother'sfamily in Russia, with the exception of the sculptured marbles executedby himself. These he left to me.

  The page blurred under our eyes, and Jack got up and walked to thewindow. Presently he returned and sat down again. I dreaded to hear whathe was going to say, but he spoke with the same simplicity andgentleness.

  "Genevieve lies before the Madonna in the marble room. The Madonna bendstenderly above her, and Genevieve smiles back into that calm face thatnever would have been except for her."

  His voice broke, but he grasped my hand, saying, "Courage, Alec." Nextmorning he left for Ept to fulfil his trust.