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The King In Yellow

R >> Robert W. Chambers >> The King In Yellow




"Excuse me," he continued in lazy soothing tones, harmonizing with her
purring, "if I seem indelicate, but I cannot help musing on this
rose-coloured garter, flowered so quaintly and fastened with a silver
clasp. For the clasp is silver; I can see the mint mark on the edge, as is
prescribed by the law of the French Republic. Now, why is this garter
woven of rose silk and delicately embroidered,--why is this silken garter
with its silver clasp about your famished throat? Am I indiscreet when I
inquire if its owner is your owner? Is she some aged dame living in memory
of youthful vanities, fond, doting on you, decorating you with her
intimate personal attire? The circumference of the garter would suggest
this, for your neck is thin, and the garter fits you. But then again I
notice--I notice most things--that the garter is capable of being much
enlarged. These small silver-rimmed eyelets, of which I count five, are
proof of that. And now I observe that the fifth eyelet is worn out, as
though the tongue of the clasp were accustomed to lie there. That seems to
argue a well-rounded form."

The cat curled her toes in contentment. The street was very still outside.

He murmured on: "Why should your mistress decorate you with an article
most necessary to her at all times? Anyway, at most times. How did she
come to slip this bit of silk and silver about your neck? Was it the
caprice of a moment,--when you, before you had lost your pristine
plumpness, marched singing into her bedroom to bid her good-morning? Of
course, and she sat up among the pillows, her coiled hair tumbling to her
shoulders, as you sprang upon the bed purring: 'Good-day, my lady.' Oh, it
is very easy to understand," he yawned, resting his head on the back of
the chair. The cat still purred, tightening and relaxing her padded claws
over his knee.

"Shall I tell you all about her, cat? She is very beautiful--your
mistress," he murmured drowsily, "and her hair is heavy as burnished
gold. I could paint her,--not on canvas--for I should need shades and
tones and hues and dyes more splendid than the iris of a splendid rainbow.
I could only paint her with closed eyes, for in dreams alone can such
colours as I need be found. For her eyes, I must have azure from skies
untroubled by a cloud--the skies of dreamland. For her lips, roses from
the palaces of slumberland, and for her brow, snow-drifts from mountains
which tower in fantastic pinnacles to the moons;--oh, much higher than our
moon here,--the crystal moons of dreamland. She is--very--beautiful, your
mistress."

The words died on his lips and his eyelids drooped.

The cat, too, was asleep, her cheek turned up upon her wasted flank, her
paws relaxed and limp.




II

"It is fortunate," said Severn, sitting up and stretching, "that we have
tided over the dinner hour, for I have nothing to offer you for supper but
what may be purchased with one silver franc."

The cat on his knee rose, arched her back, yawned, and looked up at him.

"What shall it be? A roast chicken with salad? No? Possibly you prefer
beef? Of course,--and I shall try an egg and some white bread. Now for the
wines. Milk for you? Good. I shall take a little water, fresh from the
wood," with a motion toward the bucket in the sink.

He put on his hat and left the room. The cat followed to the door, and
after he had closed it behind him, she settled down, smelling at the
cracks, and cocking one ear at every creak from the crazy old building.

The door below opened and shut. The cat looked serious, for a moment
doubtful, and her ears flattened in nervous expectation. Presently she
rose with a jerk of her tail and started on a noiseless tour of the
studio. She sneezed at a pot of turpentine, hastily retreating to the
table, which she presently mounted, and having satisfied her curiosity
concerning a roll of red modelling wax, returned to the door and sat down
with her eyes on the crack over the threshold Then she lifted her voice in
a thin plaint.

When Severn returned he looked grave, but the cat, joyous and
demonstrative, marched around him, rubbing her gaunt body against his
legs, driving her head enthusiastically into his hand, and purring until
her voice mounted to a squeal.

He placed a bit of meat, wrapped in brown paper, upon the table, and with
a penknife cut it into shreds. The milk he took from a bottle which had
served for medicine, and poured it into the saucer on the hearth.

The cat crouched before it, purring and lapping at the same time.

He cooked his egg and ate it with a slice of bread, watching her busy with
the shredded meat, and when he had finished, and had filled and emptied a
cup of water from the bucket in the sink, he sat down, taking her into his
lap, where she at once curled up and began her toilet. He began to speak
again, touching her caressingly at times by way of emphasis.

"Cat, I have found out where your mistress lives. It is not very far
away;--it is here, under this same leaky roof, but in the north wing which
I had supposed was uninhabited. My janitor tells me this. By chance, he is
almost sober this evening. The butcher on the rue de Seine, where I bought
your meat, knows you, and old Cabane the baker identified you with
needless sarcasm. They tell me hard tales of your mistress which I shall
not believe. They say she is idle and vain and pleasure-loving; they say
she is hare-brained and reckless. The little sculptor on the ground floor,
who was buying rolls from old Cabane, spoke to me to-night for the first
time, although we have always bowed to each other. He said she was very
good and very beautiful. He has only seen her once, and does not know her
name. I thanked him;--I don't know why I thanked him so warmly. Cabane
said, 'Into this cursed Street of the Four Winds, the four winds blow all
things evil.' The sculptor looked confused, but when he went out with his
rolls, he said to me, 'I am sure, Monsieur, that she is as good as she is
beautiful.'"

The cat had finished her toilet, and now, springing softly to the floor,
went to the door and sniffed. He knelt beside her, and unclasping the
garter held it for a moment in his hands. After a while he said: "There is
a name engraved upon the silver clasp beneath the buckle. It is a pretty
name, Sylvia Elven. Sylvia is a woman's name, Elven is the name of a town.
In Paris, in this quarter, above all, in this Street of the Four Winds,
names are worn and put away as the fashions change with the seasons. I
know the little town of Elven, for there I met Fate face to face and Fate
was unkind. But do you know that in Elven Fate had another name, and that
name was Sylvia?"

He replaced the garter and stood up looking down at the cat crouched
before the closed door.

"The name of Elven has a charm for me. It tells me of meadows and clear
rivers. The name of Sylvia troubles me like perfume from dead flowers."

The cat mewed.

"Yes, yes," he said soothingly, "I will take you back. Your Sylvia is not
my Sylvia; the world is wide and Elven is not unknown. Yet in the darkness
and filth of poorer Paris, in the sad shadows of this ancient house, these
names are very pleasant to me."

He lifted her in his arms and strode through the silent corridors to the
stairs. Down five flights and into the moonlit court, past the little
sculptor's den, and then again in at the gate of the north wing and up the
worm-eaten stairs he passed, until he came to a closed door. When he had
stood knocking for a long time, something moved behind the door; it opened
and he went in. The room was dark. As he crossed the threshold, the cat
sprang from his arms into the shadows. He listened but heard nothing. The
silence was oppressive and he struck a match. At his elbow stood a table
and on the table a candle in a gilded candlestick. This he lighted, then
looked around. The chamber was vast, the hangings heavy with embroidery.
Over the fireplace towered a carved mantel, grey with the ashes of dead
fires. In a recess by the deep-set windows stood a bed, from which the
bedclothes, soft and fine as lace, trailed to the polished floor. He
lifted the candle above his head. A handkerchief lay at his feet. It was
faintly perfumed. He turned toward the windows. In front of them was a
_canapé_ and over it were flung, pell-mell, a gown of silk, a heap of
lace-like garments, white and delicate as spiders' meshes, long, crumpled
gloves, and, on the floor beneath, the stockings, the little pointed
shoes, and one garter of rosy silk, quaintly flowered and fitted with a
silver clasp. Wondering, he stepped forward and drew the heavy curtains
from the bed. For a moment the candle flared in his hand; then his eyes
met two other eyes, wide open, smiling, and the candle-flame flashed over
hair heavy as gold.

She was pale, but not as white as he; her eyes were untroubled as a
child's; but he stared, trembling from head to foot, while the candle
flickered in his hand.

At last he whispered: "Sylvia, it is I."

Again he said, "It is I."

Then, knowing that she was dead, he kissed her on the mouth. And through
the long watches of the night the cat purred on his knee, tightening and
relaxing her padded claws, until the sky paled above the Street of the
Four Winds.




THE STREET OF THE FIRST SHELL


"Be of Good Cheer, the Sullen Month will die,
And a young Moon requite us by and by:
Look how the Old one, meagre, bent, and wan
With age and Fast, is fainting from the sky."

The room was already dark. The high roofs opposite cut off what little
remained of the December daylight. The girl drew her chair nearer the
window, and choosing a large needle, threaded it, knotting the thread over
her fingers. Then she smoothed the baby garment across her knees, and
bending, bit off the thread and drew the smaller needle from where it
rested in the hem. When she had brushed away the stray threads and bits of
lace, she laid it again over her knees caressingly. Then she slipped the
threaded needle from her corsage and passed it through a button, but as
the button spun down the thread, her hand faltered, the thread snapped,
and the button rolled across the floor. She raised her head. Her eyes were
fixed on a strip of waning light above the chimneys. From somewhere in the
city came sounds like the distant beating of drums, and beyond, far
beyond, a vague muttering, now growing, swelling, rumbling in the distance
like the pounding of surf upon the rocks, now like the surf again,
receding, growling, menacing. The cold had become intense, a bitter
piercing cold which strained and snapped at joist and beam and turned the
slush of yesterday to flint. From the street below every sound broke sharp
and metallic--the clatter of sabots, the rattle of shutters or the rare
sound of a human voice. The air was heavy, weighted with the black cold as
with a pall. To breathe was painful, to move an effort.

In the desolate sky there was something that wearied, in the brooding
clouds, something that saddened. It penetrated the freezing city cut by
the freezing river, the splendid city with its towers and domes, its quays
and bridges and its thousand spires. It entered the squares, it seized the
avenues and the palaces, stole across bridges and crept among the narrow
streets of the Latin Quarter, grey under the grey of the December sky.
Sadness, utter sadness. A fine icy sleet was falling, powdering the
pavement with a tiny crystalline dust. It sifted against the window-panes
and drifted in heaps along the sill. The light at the window had nearly
failed, and the girl bent low over her work. Presently she raised her
head, brushing the curls from her eyes.

"Jack?"

"Dearest?"

"Don't forget to clean your palette."

He said, "All right," and picking up the palette, sat down upon the floor
in front of the stove. His head and shoulders were in the shadow, but the
firelight fell across his knees and glimmered red on the blade of the
palette-knife. Full in the firelight beside him stood a colour-box. On the
lid was carved,

J. TRENT.
Ecole des Beaux Arts.
1870.

This inscription was ornamented with an American and a French flag.

The sleet blew against the window-panes, covering them with stars and
diamonds, then, melting from the warmer air within, ran down and froze
again in fern-like traceries.

A dog whined and the patter of small paws sounded on the zinc behind the
stove.

"Jack, dear, do you think Hercules is hungry?"

The patter of paws was redoubled behind the stove.

"He's whining," she continued nervously, "and if it isn't because he's
hungry it is because--"

Her voice faltered. A loud humming filled the air, the windows vibrated.

"Oh, Jack," she cried, "another--" but her voice was drowned in the scream
of a shell tearing through the clouds overhead.

"That is the nearest yet," she murmured.

"Oh, no," he answered cheerfully, "it probably fell way over by
Montmartre," and as she did not answer, he said again with exaggerated
unconcern, "They wouldn't take the trouble to fire at the Latin Quarter;
anyway they haven't a battery that can hurt it."

After a while she spoke up brightly: "Jack, dear, when are you going to
take me to see Monsieur West's statues?"

"I will bet," he said, throwing down his palette and walking over to the
window beside her, "that Colette has been here to-day."

"Why?" she asked, opening her eyes very wide. Then, "Oh, it's too
bad!--really, men are tiresome when they think they know everything! And I
warn you that if Monsieur West is vain enough to imagine that Colette--"

From the north another shell came whistling and quavering through the sky,
passing above them with long-drawn screech which left the windows singing.

"That," he blurted out, "was too near for comfort."

They were silent for a while, then he spoke again gaily: "Go on, Sylvia,
and wither poor West;" but she only sighed, "Oh, dear, I can never seem to
get used to the shells."

He sat down on the arm of the chair beside her.

Her scissors fell jingling to the floor; she tossed the unfinished frock
after them, and putting both arms about his neck drew him down into her
lap.

"Don't go out to-night, Jack."

He kissed her uplifted face; "You know I must; don't make it hard for me."

"But when I hear the shells and--and know you are out in the city--"

"But they all fall in Montmartre--"

"They may all fall in the Beaux Arts; you said yourself that two struck
the Quai d'Orsay--"

"Mere accident--"

"Jack, have pity on me! Take me with you!"

"And who will there be to get dinner?"

She rose and flung herself on the bed.

"Oh, I can't get used to it, and I know you must go, but I beg you not to
be late to dinner. If you knew what I suffer! I--I--cannot help it, and
you must be patient with me, dear."

He said, "It is as safe there as it is in our own house."

She watched him fill for her the alcohol lamp, and when he had lighted it
and had taken his hat to go, she jumped up and clung to him in silence.
After a moment he said: "Now, Sylvia, remember my courage is sustained by
yours. Come, I must go!" She did not move, and he repeated: "I must go."
Then she stepped back and he thought she was going to speak and waited,
but she only looked at him, and, a little impatiently, he kissed her
again, saying: "Don't worry, dearest."

When he had reached the last flight of stairs on his way to the street a
woman hobbled out of the house-keeper's lodge waving a letter and calling:
"Monsieur Jack! Monsieur Jack! this was left by Monsieur Fallowby!"

He took the letter, and leaning on the threshold of the lodge, read it:

"Dear Jack,

"I believe Braith is dead broke and I'm sure Fallowby is. Braith swears he
isn't, and Fallowby swears he is, so you can draw your own conclusions.
I've got a scheme for a dinner, and if it works, I will let you fellows
in.

"Yours faithfully,

"West.

"P.S.--Fallowby has shaken Hartman and his gang, thank the Lord! There is
something rotten there,--or it may be he's only a miser.

"P.P.S.--I'm more desperately in love than ever, but I'm sure she does not
care a straw for me."

"All right," said Trent, with a smile, to the concierge; "but tell me, how
is Papa Cottard?"

The old woman shook her head and pointed to the curtained bed in the
lodge.

"Père Cottard!" he cried cheerily, "how goes the wound to-day?"

He walked over to the bed and drew the curtains. An old man was lying
among the tumbled sheets.

"Better?" smiled Trent.

"Better," repeated the man wearily; and, after a pause, "Have you any
news, Monsieur Jack?"

"I haven't been out to-day. I will bring you any rumour I may hear, though
goodness knows I've got enough of rumours," he muttered to himself. Then
aloud: "Cheer up; you're looking better."

"And the sortie?"

"Oh, the sortie, that's for this week. General Trochu sent orders last
night."

"It will be terrible."

"It will be sickening," thought Trent as he went not into the street and
turned the corner toward the rue de Seine; "slaughter, slaughter, phew!
I'm glad I'm not going."

The street was almost deserted. A few women muffled in tattered military
capes crept along the frozen pavement, and a wretchedly clad gamin hovered
over the sewer-hole on the corner of the Boulevard. A rope around his
waist held his rags together. From the rope hung a rat, still warm and
bleeding.

"There's another in there," he yelled at Trent; "I hit him but he got
away."

Trent crossed the street and asked: "How much?"

"Two francs for a quarter of a fat one; that's what they give at the St.
Germain Market."

A violent fit of coughing interrupted him, but he wiped his face with the
palm of his hand and looked cunningly at Trent.

"Last week you could buy a rat for six francs, but," and here he swore
vilely, "the rats have quit the rue de Seine and they kill them now over
by the new hospital. I'll let you have this for seven francs; I can sell
it for ten in the Isle St. Louis."

"You lie," said Trent, "and let me tell you that if you try to swindle
anybody in this quarter the people will make short work of you and your
rats."

He stood a moment eyeing the gamin, who pretended to snivel. Then he
tossed him a franc, laughing. The child caught it, and thrusting it into
his mouth wheeled about to the sewer-hole. For a second he crouched,
motionless, alert, his eyes on the bars of the drain, then leaping forward
he hurled a stone into the gutter, and Trent left him to finish a fierce
grey rat that writhed squealing at the mouth of the sewer.

"Suppose Braith should come to that," he thought; "poor little chap;" and
hurrying, he turned in the dirty passage des Beaux Arts and entered the
third house to the left.

"Monsieur is at home," quavered the old concierge.

Home? A garret absolutely bare, save for the iron bedstead in the corner
and the iron basin and pitcher on the floor.

West appeared at the door, winking with much mystery, and motioned Trent
to enter. Braith, who was painting in bed to keep warm, looked up,
laughed, and shook hands.

"Any news?"

The perfunctory question was answered as usual by: "Nothing but the
cannon."

Trent sat down on the bed.

"Where on earth did you get that?" he demanded, pointing to a
half-finished chicken nestling in a wash-basin.

West grinned.

"Are you millionaires, you two? Out with it."

Braith, looking a little ashamed, began, "Oh, it's one of West's
exploits," but was cut short by West, who said he would tell the story
himself.

"You see, before the siege, I had a letter of introduction to a '_type_'
here, a fat banker, German-American variety. You know the species, I see.
Well, of course I forgot to present the letter, but this morning, judging
it to be a favourable opportunity, I called on him.

"The villain lives in comfort;--fires, my boy!--fires in the ante-rooms!
The Buttons finally condescends to carry my letter and card up, leaving me
standing in the hallway, which I did not like, so I entered the first room
I saw and nearly fainted at the sight of a banquet on a table by the fire.
Down comes Buttons, very insolent. No, oh, no, his master, 'is not at
home, and in fact is too busy to receive letters of introduction just now;
the siege, and many business difficulties--'

"I deliver a kick to Buttons, pick up this chicken from the table, toss my
card on to the empty plate, and addressing Buttons as a species of
Prussian pig, march out with the honours of war."

Trent shook his head.

"I forgot to say that Hartman often dines there, and I draw my own
conclusions," continued West. "Now about this chicken, half of it is for
Braith and myself, and half for Colette, but of course you will help me
eat my part because I'm not hungry."

"Neither am I," began Braith, but Trent, with a smile at the pinched faces
before him, shook his head saying, "What nonsense! You know I'm never
hungry!"

West hesitated, reddened, and then slicing off Braith's portion, but not
eating any himself, said good-night, and hurried away to number 470 rue
Serpente, where lived a pretty girl named Colette, orphan after Sedan, and
Heaven alone knew where she got the roses in her cheeks, for the siege
came hard on the poor.

"That chicken will delight her, but I really believe she's in love with
West," said Trent. Then walking over to the bed: "See here, old man, no
dodging, you know, how much have you left?"

The other hesitated and flushed.

"Come, old chap," insisted Trent.

Braith drew a purse from beneath his bolster, and handed it to his friend
with a simplicity that touched him.

"Seven sons," he counted; "you make me tired! Why on earth don't you come
to me? I take it d----d ill, Braith! How many times must I go over the same
thing and explain to you that because I have money it is my duty to share
it, and your duty and the duty of every American to share it with me? You
can't get a cent, the city's blockaded, and the American Minister has his
hands full with all the German riff-raff and deuce knows what! Why don't
you act sensibly?"

"I--I will, Trent, but it's an obligation that perhaps I can never even in
part repay, I'm poor and--"

"Of course you'll pay me! If I were a usurer I would take your talent for
security. When you are rich and famous--"

"Don't, Trent--"

"All right, only no more monkey business."

He slipped a dozen gold pieces into the purse, and tucking it again under
the mattress smiled at Braith.

"How old are you?" he demanded.

"Sixteen."

Trent laid his hand lightly on his friend's shoulder. "I'm twenty-two, and
I have the rights of a grandfather as far as you are concerned. You'll do
as I say until you're twenty-one."

"The siège will be over then, I hope," said Braith, trying to laugh, but
the prayer in their hearts: "How long, O Lord, how long!" was answered by
the swift scream of a shell soaring among the storm-clouds of that
December night.




II

West, standing in the doorway of a house in the rue Serpentine, was
speaking angrily. He said he didn't care whether Hartman liked it or not;
he was telling him, not arguing with him.

"You call yourself an American!" he sneered; "Berlin and hell are full of
that kind of American. You come loafing about Colette with your pockets
stuffed with white bread and beef, and a bottle of wine at thirty francs
and you can't really afford to give a dollar to the American Ambulance and
Public Assistance, which Braith does, and he's half starved!"

Hartman retreated to the curbstone, but West followed him, his face like a
thunder-cloud. "Don't you dare to call yourself a countryman of mine," he
growled,--"no,--nor an artist either! Artists don't worm themselves into
the service of the Public Defence where they do nothing but feed like rats
on the people's food! And I'll tell you now," he continued dropping his
voice, for Hartman had started as though stung, "you might better keep
away from that Alsatian Brasserie and the smug-faced thieves who haunt it.
You know what they do with suspects!"

"You lie, you hound!" screamed Hartman, and flung the bottle in his hand
straight at West's face. West had him by the throat in a second, and
forcing him against the dead wall shook him wickedly.

"Now you listen to me," he muttered, through his clenched teeth. "You are
already a suspect and--I swear--I believe you are a paid spy! It isn't my
business to detect such vermin, and I don't intend to denounce you, but
understand this! Colette don't like you and I can't stand you, and if I
catch you in this street again I'll make it somewhat unpleasant. Get out,
you sleek Prussian!"

Hartman had managed to drag a knife from his pocket, but West tore it from
him and hurled him into the gutter. A gamin who had seen this burst into a
peal of laughter, which rattled harshly in the silent street. Then
everywhere windows were raised and rows of haggard faces appeared
demanding to know why people should laugh in the starving city.

"Is it a victory?" murmured one.

"Look at that," cried West as Hartman picked himself up from the pavement,
"look! you miser! look at those faces!" But Hartman gave _him_ a look
which he never forgot, and walked away without a word. Trent, who suddenly
appeared at the corner, glanced curiously at West, who merely nodded
toward his door saying, "Come in; Fallowby's upstairs."

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