The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers (e book reader online .txt) đ
- Author: Robert W. Chambers
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The word was passed, âThey begin with C this week.â
They did.
âClisson!â
Clisson jumped like a flash and marked his name on the floor in chalk before a front seat.
âCaron!â
Caron galloped away to secure his place. Bang! went an easel. âNom de Dieu!â in French,ââWhere in hâl are you goinâ!â in English. Crash! a paintbox fell with brushes and all on board. âDieu de Dieu deââ spat! A blow, a short rush, a clinch and scuffle, and the voice of the massier, stern and reproachful:
âCochon!â
Then the roll-call was resumed.
âClifford!â
The massier paused and looked up, one finger between the leaves of the ledger.
âClifford!â
Clifford was not there. He was about three miles away in a direct line and every instant increased the distance. Not that he was walking fast,âon the contrary, he was strolling with that leisurely gait peculiar to himself. Elliott was beside him and two bulldogs covered the rear. Elliott was reading the âGil Blas,â from which he seemed to extract amusement, but deeming boisterous mirth unsuitable to Cliffordâs state of mind, subdued his amusement to a series of discreet smiles. The latter, moodily aware of this, said nothing, but leading the way into the Luxembourg Gardens installed himself upon a bench by the northern terrace and surveyed the landscape with disfavour. Elliott, according to the Luxembourg regulations, tied the two dogs and then, with an interrogative glance toward his friend, resumed the âGil Blasâ and the discreet smiles.
The day was perfect. The sun hung over Notre Dame, setting the city in a glitter. The tender foliage of the chestnuts cast a shadow over the terrace and flecked the paths and walks with tracery so blue that Clifford might here have found encouragement for his violent âimpressionsâ had he but looked; but as usual in this period of his career, his thoughts were anywhere except in his profession. Around about, the sparrows quarrelled and chattered their courtship songs, the big rosy pigeons sailed from tree to tree, the flies whirled in the sunbeams and the flowers exhaled a thousand perfumes which stirred Clifford with languorous wistfulness. Under this influence he spoke.
âElliott, you are a true friendââ
âYou make me ill,â replied the latter, folding his paper. âItâs just as I thought,âyou are tagging after some new petticoat again. And,â he continued wrathfully, âif this is what youâve kept me away from Julianâs for,âif itâs to fill me up with the perfections of some little idiotââ
âNot idiot,â remonstrated Clifford gently.
âSee here,â cried Elliott, âhave you the nerve to try to tell me that you are in love again?â
âAgain?â
âYes, again and again and again andâby George have you?â
âThis,â observed Clifford sadly, âis serious.â
For a moment Elliott would have laid hands on him, then he laughed from sheer helplessness. âOh, go on, go on; letâs see, thereâs ClĂ©mence and Marie Tellec and Cosette and Fifine, Colette, Marie Verdierââ
âAll of whom are charming, most charming, but I never was seriousââ
âSo help me, Moses,â said Elliott, solemnly, âeach and every one of those named have separately and in turn torn your heart with anguish and have also made me lose my place at Julianâs in this same manner; each and every one, separately and in turn. Do you deny it?â
âWhat you say may be founded on factsâin a wayâbut give me the credit of being faithful to one at a timeââ
âUntil the next came along.â
âBut this,âthis is really very different. Elliott, believe me, I am all broken up.â
Then there being nothing else to do, Elliott gnashed his teeth and listened.
âItâsâitâs Rue BarrĂ©e.â
âWell,â observed Elliott, with scorn, âif you are moping and moaning over that girl,âthe girl who has given you and myself every reason to wish that the ground would open and engulf us,âwell, go on!â
âIâm going on,âI donât care; timidity has fledââ
âYes, your native timidity.â
âIâm desperate, Elliott. Am I in love? Never, never did I feel so dân miserable. I canât sleep; honestly, Iâm incapable of eating properly.â
âSame symptoms noticed in the case of Colette.â
âListen, will you?â
âHold on a moment, I know the rest by heart. Now let me ask you something. Is it your belief that Rue BarrĂ©e is a pure girl?â
âYes,â said Clifford, turning red.
âDo you love her,ânot as you dangle and tiptoe after every pretty inanityâI mean, do you honestly love her?â
âYes,â said the other doggedly, âI wouldââ
âHold on a moment; would you marry her?â
Clifford turned scarlet. âYes,â he muttered.
âPleasant news for your family,â growled Elliott in suppressed fury. ââDear father, I have just married a charming grisette whom Iâm sure youâll welcome with open arms, in company with her mother, a most estimable and cleanly washlady.â Good heavens! This seems to have gone a little further than the rest. Thank your stars, young man, that my head is level enough for us both. Still, in this case, I have no fear. Rue BarrĂ©e sat on your aspirations in a manner unmistakably final.â
âRue BarrĂ©e,â began Clifford, drawing himself up, but he suddenly ceased, for there where the dappled sunlight glowed in spots of gold, along the sun-flecked path, tripped Rue BarrĂ©e. Her gown was spotless, and her big straw hat, tipped a little from the white forehead, threw a shadow across her eyes.
Elliott stood up and bowed. Clifford removed his head-covering with an air so plaintive, so appealing, so utterly humble that Rue Barrée smiled.
The smile was delicious and when Clifford, incapable of sustaining himself on his legs from sheer astonishment, toppled slightly, she smiled again in spite of herself. A few moments later she took a chair on the terrace and drawing a book from her music-roll, turned the pages, found the place, and then placing it open downwards in her lap, sighed a little, smiled a little, and looked out over the city. She had entirely forgotten Foxhall Clifford.
After a while she took up her book again, but instead of reading began to adjust a rose in her corsage. The rose was big and red. It glowed like fire there over her heart, and like fire it warmed her heart, now fluttering under the silken petals. Rue BarrĂ©e sighed again. She was very happy. The sky was so blue, the air so soft and perfumed, the sunshine so caressing, and her heart sang within her, sang to the rose in her breast. This is what it sang: âOut of the throng of passers-by, out of the world of yesterday, out of the millions passing, one has turned aside to me.â
So her heart sang under his rose on her breast. Then two big mouse-coloured pigeons came whistling by and alighted on the terrace, where they bowed and strutted and bobbed and turned until Rue Barrée laughed in delight, and looking up beheld Clifford before her. His hat was in his hand and his face was wreathed in a series of appealing smiles which would have touched the heart of a Bengal tiger.
For an instant Rue BarrĂ©e frowned, then she looked curiously at Clifford, then when she saw the resemblance between his bows and the bobbing pigeons, in spite of herself, her lips parted in the most bewitching laugh. Was this Rue BarrĂ©e? So changed, so changed that she did not know herself; but oh! that song in her heart which drowned all else, which trembled on her lips, struggling for utterance, which rippled forth in a laugh at nothing,âat a strutting pigeon,âand Mr. Clifford.
âAnd you think, because I return the salute of the students in the Quarter, that you may be received in particular as a friend? I do not know you, Monsieur, but vanity is manâs other name;âbe content, Monsieur Vanity, I shall be punctiliousâoh, most punctilious in returning your salute.â
âBut I begâI implore you to let me render you that homage which has so longââ
âOh dear; I donât care for homage.â
âLet me only be permitted to speak to you now and then,âoccasionallyâvery occasionally.â
âAnd if you, why not another?â
âNot at all,âI will be discretion itself.â
âDiscretionâwhy?â
Her eyes were very clear, and Clifford winced for a moment, but only for a moment. Then the devil of recklessness seizing him, he sat down and offered himself, soul and body, goods and chattels. And all the time he knew he was a fool and that infatuation is not love, and that each word he uttered bound him in honour from which there was no escape. And all the time Elliott was scowling down on the fountain plaza and savagely checking both bulldogs from their desire to rush to Cliffordâs rescue,âfor even they felt there was something wrong, as Elliott stormed within himself and growled maledictions.
When Clifford finished, he finished in a glow of excitement, but Rue BarrĂ©eâs response was long in coming and his ardour cooled while the situation slowly assumed its just proportions. Then regret began to creep in, but he put that aside and broke out again in protestations. At the first word Rue BarrĂ©e checked him.
âI thank you,â she said, speaking very gravely. âNo man has ever before offered me marriage.â She turned and looked out over the city. After a while she spoke again. âYou offer me a great deal. I am alone, I have nothing, I am nothing.â She turned again and looked at Paris, brilliant, fair, in the sunshine of a perfect day. He followed her eyes.
âOh,â she murmured, âit is hard,âhard to work alwaysâalways alone with never a friend you can have in honour, and the love that is offered means the streets, the boulevardâwhen passion is dead. I know it,â_we_ know it,âwe others who have nothing,âhave no one, and who give ourselves, unquestioningâwhen we love,âyes, unquestioningâheart and soul, knowing the end.â
She touched the rose at her breast. For a moment she seemed to forget him, then quietlyââI thank you, I am very grateful.â She opened the book and, plucking a petal from the rose, dropped it between the leaves. Then looking up she said gently, âI cannot accept.â
VIt took Clifford a month to entirely recover, although at the end of the first week he was pronounced convalescent by Elliott, who was an authority, and his convalescence was aided by the cordiality with which Rue BarrĂ©e acknowledged his solemn salutes. Forty times a day he blessed Rue BarrĂ©e for her refusal, and thanked his lucky stars, and at the same time, oh, wondrous heart of ours!âhe suffered the tortures of the blighted.
Elliott was annoyed, partly by Cliffordâs reticence, partly by the unexplainable thaw in the frigidity of Rue BarrĂ©e. At their frequent encounters, when she, tripping along the rue de Seine, with music-roll and big straw hat would pass Clifford and his familiars steering an easterly course to the CafĂ© Vachette, and at the respectful uncovering of the band would colour and smile at Clifford, Elliottâs slumbering suspicions awoke. But he never found out anything, and finally gave it up as beyond his comprehension, merely qualifying Clifford as an idiot and reserving his opinion of Rue BarrĂ©e. And all this time Selby was jealous. At first he refused to acknowledge it to himself, and cut the studio for a day in the country, but the woods and fields of course aggravated his case, and the brooks babbled of Rue BarrĂ©e and the mowers calling to each other across the meadow ended in a quavering âRue Bar-rĂ©e-e!â That day spent in the country made him angry for a week,
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