The King in Yellow
Page 7
IV
The same evening I took the keys and went into the house I had known sowell. Everything was in order, but the silence was terrible. Though Iwent twice to the door of the marble room, I could not force myself toenter. It was beyond my strength. I went into the smoking-room and satdown before the spinet. A small lace handkerchief lay on the keys, and Iturned away, choking. It was plain I could not stay, so I locked everydoor, every window, and the three front and back gates, and went away.Next morning Alcide packed my valise, and leaving him in charge of myapartments I took the Orient express for Constantinople. During the twoyears that I wandered through the East, at first, in our letters, wenever mentioned Genevieve and Boris, but gradually their names crept in.I recollect particularly a passage in one of Jack's letters replying toone of mine--
"What you tell me of seeing Boris bending over you while you lay ill, andfeeling his touch on your face, and hearing his voice, of course troublesme. This that you describe must have happened a fortnight after he died.I say to myself that you were dreaming, that it was part of yourdelirium, but the explanation does not satisfy me, nor would it you."
Toward the end of the second year a letter came from Jack to me in Indiaso unlike anything that I had ever known of him that I decided to returnat once to Paris. He wrote: "I am well, and sell all my pictures asartists do who have no need of money. I have not a care of my own, but Iam more restless than if I had. I am unable to shake off a strangeanxiety about you. It is not apprehension, it is rather a breathlessexpectancy--of what, God knows! I can only say it is wearing me out.Nights I dream always of you and Boris. I can never recall anythingafterward, but I wake in the morning with my heart beating, and all daythe excitement increases until I fall asleep at night to recall the sameexperience. I am quite exhausted by it, and have determined to break upthis morbid condition. I must see you. Shall I go to Bombay, or will youcome to Paris?"
I telegraphed him to expect me by the next steamer.
When we met I thought he had changed very little; I, he insisted, lookedin splendid health. It was good to hear his voice again, and as we satand chatted about what life still held for us, we felt that it waspleasant to be alive in the bright spring weather.
We stayed in Paris together a week, and then I went for a week to Eptwith him, but first of all we went to the cemetery at Sevres, where Borislay.
"Shall we place the 'Fates' in the little grove above him?" Jack asked,and I answered--
"I think only the 'Madonna' should watch over Boris' grave." But Jack wasnone the better for my home-coming. The dreams of which he could notretain even the least definite outline continued, and he said that attimes the sense of breathless expectancy was suffocating.
"You see I do you harm and not good," I said. "Try a change without me."So he started alone for a ramble among the Channel Islands, and I wentback to Paris. I had not yet entered Boris' house, now mine, since myreturn, but I knew it must be done. It had been kept in order by Jack;there were servants there, so I gave up my own apartment and went thereto live. Instead of the agitation I had feared, I found myself able topaint there tranquilly. I visited all the rooms--all but one. I could notbring myself to enter the marble room where Genevieve lay, and yet I feltthe longing growing daily to look upon her face, to kneel beside her.
One April afternoon, I lay dreaming in the smoking-room, just as I hadlain two years before, and mechanically I looked among the tawny Easternrugs for the wolf-skin. At last I distinguished the pointed ears and flatcruel head, and I thought of my dream where I saw Genevieve lying besideit. The helmets still hung against the threadbare tapestry, among themthe old Spanish morion which I remembered Genevieve had once put on whenwe were amusing ourselves with the ancient bits of mail. I turned my eyesto the spinet; every yellow key seemed eloquent of her caressing hand,and I rose, drawn by the strength of my life's passion to the sealed doorof the marble room. The heavy doors swung inward under my tremblinghands. Sunlight poured through the window, tipping with gold the wings ofCupid, and lingered like a nimbus over the brows of the Madonna. Hertender face bent in compassion over a marble form so exquisitely purethat I knelt and signed myself. Genevieve lay in the shadow under theMadonna, and yet, through her white arms, I saw the pale azure vein, andbeneath her softly clasped hands the folds of her dress were tinged withrose, as if from some faint warm light within her breast.
Bending, with a breaking heart, I touched the marble drapery with mylips, then crept back into the silent house.
A maid came and brought me a letter, and I sat down in the littleconservatory to read it; but as I was about to break the seal, seeing thegirl lingering, I asked her what she wanted.
She stammered something about a white rabbit that had been caught in thehouse, and asked what should be done with it I told her to let it loosein the walled garden behind the house, and opened my letter. It was fromJack, but so incoherent that I thought he must have lost his reason. Itwas nothing but a series of prayers to me not to leave the house until hecould get back; he could not tell me why, there were the dreams, hesaid--he could explain nothing, but he was sure that I must not leave thehouse in the Rue Sainte-Cecile.
As I finished reading I raised my eyes and saw the same maid-servantstanding in the doorway holding a glass dish in which two gold-fish wereswimming: "Put them back into the tank and tell me what you mean byinterrupting me," I said.
With a half-suppressed whimper she emptied water and fish into anaquarium at the end of the conservatory, and turning to me asked mypermission to leave my service. She said people were playing tricks onher, evidently with a design of getting her into trouble; the marblerabbit had been stolen and a live one had been brought into the house;the two beautiful marble fish were gone, and she had just found thosecommon live things flopping on the dining-room floor. I reassured her andsent her away, saying I would look about myself. I went into the studio;there was nothing there but my canvases and some casts, except the marbleof the Easter lily. I saw it on a table across the room. Then I strodeangrily over to it. But the flower I lifted from the table was fresh andfragile and filled the air with perfume.
Then suddenly I comprehended, and sprang through the hall-way to themarble room. The doors flew open, the sunlight streamed into my face, andthrough it, in a heavenly glory, the Madonna smiled, as Genevieve liftedher flushed face from her marble couch and opened her sleepy eyes.