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148 pages

English

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Craving a truly creepy read? Cuddle up with The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, a collection of spine-tingling horror stories that are woven together by a fictional play called The King in Yellow. This legendary literary creation is said to engender madness or ill fortune in all of those who read it, and many of the characters who populate the stories in this collection have been affected by the curse attached to the play.

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Short story

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juin 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775560005
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE KING IN YELLOW
* * *
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

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The King In Yellow First published in 1895 ISBN 978-1-77556-000-5 © 2012 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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The Repairer of Reputations The Mask In the Court of the Dragon The Yellow Sign The Demoiselle d'Ys The Prophets' Paradise The Street of the Four Winds The Street of the First Shell The Street of Our Lady of the Fields Rue Barrée
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THE KING IN YELLOW IS DEDICATED TO MY BROTHER
Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink beneath the lake, The shadows lengthen In Carcosa.
Strange is the night where black stars rise, And strange moons circle through the skies But stranger still is Lost Carcosa.
Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in Dim Carcosa.
Song of my soul, my voice is dead; Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in Lost Carcosa.
Cassilda's Song in "The King in Yellow," Act i, Scene 2.
The Repairer of Reputations
*
I
"Ne raillons pas les fous; leur folie dure plus longtemps que la nôtre.... Voila toute la différence."
Toward the end of the year 1920 the Government of the United States hadpractically completed the programme, adopted during the last months ofPresident Winthrop's administration. The country was apparentlytranquil. Everybody knows how the Tariff and Labour questions weresettled. The war with Germany, incident on that country's seizure of theSamoan Islands, had left no visible scars upon the republic, and thetemporary occupation of Norfolk by the invading army had been forgottenin the joy over repeated naval victories, and the subsequent ridiculousplight of General Von Gartenlaube's forces in the State of New Jersey.The Cuban and Hawaiian investments had paid one hundred per cent and theterritory of Samoa was well worth its cost as a coaling station. Thecountry was in a superb state of defence. Every coast city had been wellsupplied with land fortifications; the army under the parental eye ofthe General Staff, organized according to the Prussian system, had beenincreased to 300,000 men, with a territorial reserve of a million; andsix magnificent squadrons of cruisers and battle-ships patrolled the sixstations of the navigable seas, leaving a steam reserve amply fitted tocontrol home waters. The gentlemen from the West had at last beenconstrained to acknowledge that a college for the training of diplomatswas as necessary as law schools are for the training of barristers;consequently we were no longer represented abroad by incompetentpatriots. The nation was prosperous; Chicago, for a moment paralyzedafter a second great fire, had risen from its ruins, white and imperial,and more beautiful than the white city which had been built for itsplaything in 1893. Everywhere good architecture was replacing bad, andeven in New York, a sudden craving for decency had swept away a greatportion of the existing horrors. Streets had been widened, properlypaved and lighted, trees had been planted, squares laid out, elevatedstructures demolished and underground roads built to replace them. Thenew government buildings and barracks were fine bits of architecture,and the long system of stone quays which completely surrounded theisland had been turned into parks which proved a god-send to thepopulation. The subsidizing of the state theatre and state opera broughtits own reward. The United States National Academy of Design was muchlike European institutions of the same kind. Nobody envied the Secretaryof Fine Arts, either his cabinet position or his portfolio. TheSecretary of Forestry and Game Preservation had a much easier time,thanks to the new system of National Mounted Police. We had profitedwell by the latest treaties with France and England; the exclusion offoreign-born Jews as a measure of self-preservation, the settlement ofthe new independent negro state of Suanee, the checking of immigration,the new laws concerning naturalization, and the gradual centralizationof power in the executive all contributed to national calm andprosperity. When the Government solved the Indian problem and squadronsof Indian cavalry scouts in native costume were substituted for thepitiable organizations tacked on to the tail of skeletonized regimentsby a former Secretary of War, the nation drew a long sigh of relief.When, after the colossal Congress of Religions, bigotry and intolerancewere laid in their graves and kindness and charity began to draw warringsects together, many thought the millennium had arrived, at least in thenew world which after all is a world by itself.
But self-preservation is the first law, and the United States had tolook on in helpless sorrow as Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium writhedin the throes of Anarchy, while Russia, watching from the Caucasus,stooped and bound them one by one.
In the city of New York the summer of 1899 was signalized by thedismantling of the Elevated Railroads. The summer of 1900 will live inthe memories of New York people for many a cycle; the Dodge Statue wasremoved in that year. In the following winter began that agitation forthe repeal of the laws prohibiting suicide which bore its final fruit inthe month of April, 1920, when the first Government Lethal Chamber wasopened on Washington Square.
I had walked down that day from Dr. Archer's house on Madison Avenue,where I had been as a mere formality. Ever since that fall from myhorse, four years before, I had been troubled at times with pains in theback of my head and neck, but now for months they had been absent, andthe doctor sent me away that day saying there was nothing more to becured in me. It was hardly worth his fee to be told that; I knew itmyself. Still I did not grudge him the money. What I minded was themistake which he made at first. When they picked me up from the pavementwhere I lay unconscious, and somebody had mercifully sent a bulletthrough my horse's head, I was carried to Dr. Archer, and he,pronouncing my brain affected, placed me in his private asylum where Iwas obliged to endure treatment for insanity. At last he decided that Iwas well, and I, knowing that my mind had always been as sound as his,if not sounder, "paid my tuition" as he jokingly called it, and left. Itold him, smiling, that I would get even with him for his mistake, andhe laughed heartily, and asked me to call once in a while. I did so,hoping for a chance to even up accounts, but he gave me none, and I toldhim I would wait.
The fall from my horse had fortunately left no evil results; on thecontrary it had changed my whole character for the better. From a lazyyoung man about town, I had become active, energetic, temperate, andabove all—oh, above all else—ambitious. There was only one thing whichtroubled me, I laughed at my own uneasiness, and yet it troubled me.
During my convalescence I had bought and read for the first time, TheKing in Yellow . I remember after finishing the first act that itoccurred to me that I had better stop. I started up and flung the bookinto the fireplace; the volume struck the barred grate and fell open onthe hearth in the firelight. If I had not caught a glimpse of theopening words in the second act I should never have finished it, but asI stooped to pick it up, my eyes became riveted to the open page, andwith a cry of terror, or perhaps it was of joy so poignant that Isuffered in every nerve, I snatched the thing out of the coals and creptshaking to my bedroom, where I read it and reread it, and wept andlaughed and trembled with a horror which at times assails me yet. Thisis the thing that troubles me, for I cannot forget Carcosa where blackstars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthenin the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and mymind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God willcurse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with thisbeautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistiblein its truth—a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow. Whenthe French Government seized the translated copies which had justarrived in Paris, London, of course, became eager to read it. It is wellknown how the book spread like an infectious disease, from city to city,from continent to continent, barred out here, confiscated there,denounced by Press and pulpit, censured even by the most advanced ofliterary anarchists. No definite principles had been violated in thosewicked pages, no doctrine promulgated, no convictions outraged. It couldnot be judged by any known standard, yet, although it was acknowledgedthat the supreme note of art had been struck in The King in Yellow ,all felt that human nature could not bear the strain, nor thrive onwords in which the essence of purest poison lurked. The very banalityand innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterwardwith more awful effect.
It was, I remember, the 13th day of April, 1920, that the firstGovernment Lethal Chamber was established on the south side ofWashington Square, between Wooster Street and South Fifth Avenue. Theblock which had formerly consisted of a lot of shabby old buildings,used as cafés and restaurants for foreigners, had been acquired by theGovernment in the winter of 1898. The French and Italian cafés andrestaurants were torn down; the whole block was enclosed by a gildediron railing, and converted into a lovely garden with lawns, flowe