III

by Robert W. Chambers

The next day at noon, I arrived to find Boris pacing anxiously in his studio.

“Geneviève is asleep right now,” he said, his voice tight with worry. “The sprain isn’t serious, but why does she have such a high fever? The doctor can’t explain it—or maybe he just won’t,” he muttered under his breath.

“Geneviève has a fever?” I asked, my heart sinking.

“Absolutely. She’s been a little delirious at times all night. Can you believe it? The cheerful Geneviève, who usually has no worries at all—she keeps saying her heart is broken and that she wants to die!”

My heart froze at his words.

Boris leaned against the doorframe, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. His usually bright eyes were clouded with concern, and a new line of worry had formed around his mouth, dimming his smile. He had instructed the maid to call him the moment Geneviève woke up. We waited in silence, and as Boris grew more restless, he started fiddling with modeling wax and red clay. Suddenly, he dashed into the next room. “Come and see my rose-colored bath full of death!” he exclaimed.

“Is it really death?” I asked, trying to play along with his mood.

“I doubt you’d call it life,” he replied, pulling a single goldfish from its bowl, its body wriggling and twisting in his grasp. “We’ll send this one after the others—wherever that may be,” he said, his voice tinged with feverish excitement. A heavy weight of dread settled over me as I followed him to the crystal pool with its pink-tinted edges. He dropped the fish in, and as it fell, its scales flashed a fiery orange. The moment it hit the water, it stiffened and sank to the bottom. The surface erupted in milky foam, vibrant colors radiating outward, and then a shaft of pure, serene light broke through from the depths below.

Boris plunged his hand into the water and pulled out a stunning marble sculpture, blue-veined and rose-tinted, glistening with opalescent droplets.

“Child’s play,” he muttered, gazing at me with a weary, longing look—as if I could provide answers to the chaos swirling around us. Just then, Jack Scott walked in, eager to join the “game,” as he called it. He insisted on trying the experiment on a white rabbit right then and there. I wanted Boris to find some distraction from his worries, but I couldn’t bear the thought of witnessing the life drain from a warm, living creature, so I excused myself. I picked up a book at random and settled down to read. Unfortunately, I had chosen _The King in Yellow_. After what felt like an eternity, I was putting it away with a nervous shudder when Boris and Jack returned, carrying their marble rabbit.

At that moment, the bell rang above, and a cry echoed from the sickroom. Boris was out the door in an instant. “Jack, go get the doctor! Bring him back with you. Alec, come here.”

I stepped into the doorway. A frightened maid rushed past me, hurrying to fetch some medicine. Geneviève was sitting upright, her cheeks flushed and her eyes wild, babbling nonsensically and resisting Boris’s gentle attempts to calm her. He called for my help. At my first touch, she sighed and sank back, closing her eyes. Then, as we leaned over her, she opened them again, looking straight into Boris’s face—poor fever-stricken girl—and revealed her secret. In that moment, our three lives shifted onto new paths; the bond that had held us together snapped forever, replaced by a new connection forged in her confession. She had spoken my name, and as the fever tormented her, her heart poured out its hidden sorrow.

Stunned and speechless, I bowed my head, my face burning with shame as the blood rushed in my ears, drowning out everything else. I was frozen, unable to move or speak, listening to her feverish words in a haze of agony. I couldn’t silence her, nor could I bring myself to look at Boris. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to see Boris’s pale face.

“It’s not your fault, Alec; don’t be upset if she loves you—” but he couldn’t finish his thought. Just then, the doctor stepped quickly into the room, exclaiming, “Ah, the fever!” I grabbed Jack Scott and hurried him out to the street. “Boris would rather be alone,” I said.

We crossed the street to our own apartments, and that night, realizing I was coming down with something too, Boris went out to fetch the doctor again. The last thing I clearly remember was hearing Jack say, “For heaven’s sake, doctor, what’s wrong with him, to look like that?” and I thought of _The King in Yellow_ and the Pallid Mask.

I had been very sick, the weight of two years pressing down on me since that fateful May morning when Geneviève whispered, “I love you, but I think I love Boris best.” I never thought it would become too much for me to bear. I had convinced myself that I was handling it all just fine. But while I appeared calm on the outside, inside, a storm raged every night. Alone in my room, I cursed myself for having thoughts that felt disloyal to Boris and unworthy of Geneviève. Yet, every morning brought a sense of relief, and I would return to them with a heart that felt cleansed by the night’s turmoil.

Never once had I betrayed my sorrow in word, deed, or even thought while I was with them.

The mask I wore to hide my feelings had become a part of me. Night after night, it would slip away, revealing the truth I had buried deep inside. But there was no one to witness this revelation except me, and as dawn broke, the mask would settle back into place, as if it had never left. These thoughts swirled through my mind as I lay sick, tangled with unsettling visions of white figures, heavy as stone, crawling around in Boris’s basin. I saw the wolf’s head on the rug, snapping and foaming at Geneviève, who lay smiling beside it. I thought of the King in Yellow, wrapped in the bizarre colors of his tattered cloak, and I could hear Cassilda’s bitter cry, “Not upon us, oh King, not upon us!” I fought against these images, but they lingered—like the still, blank lake of Hali, untouched by wind or ripple, and the towers of Carcosa looming behind the moon. Aldebaran, the Hyades, Alar, Hastur, drifted through the cloud-rifts, fluttering like the tattered remnants of the King in Yellow.

Amidst all this chaos, one clear thought persisted. No matter how disordered my mind became, I knew my main purpose was to fulfill some obligation to Boris and Geneviève. What that obligation was remained unclear; sometimes it felt like protection, sometimes support during a crisis. Regardless of its form, the weight of it rested solely on my shoulders, and I was never so weak that I didn’t respond with all my heart. Faces surrounded me, mostly unfamiliar, but a few I recognized, Boris among them. They later told me it couldn’t have happened, but I knew that at least once, he had leaned over me. It was just a fleeting touch, a faint echo of his voice, and then the clouds closed in again, but I knew he had been there.

Finally, one morning, I awoke to sunlight streaming across my bed, and Jack Scott sitting beside me, reading. I didn’t have the strength to speak, let alone think or remember, but I managed a weak smile when our eyes met. When he jumped up, eager to help, I whispered, “Yes—Boris.” Jack moved to the head of my bed and leaned down to adjust my pillow. I couldn’t see his face, but he replied warmly, “You have to wait, Alec; you’re too weak to see even Boris.”

So I waited and grew stronger. In a few days, I was well enough to see anyone I wanted. During that time, I had thought and remembered. Once my past became clear again, I knew exactly what I needed to do when the moment arrived. I was confident that Boris would feel the same way. As for my own feelings, I knew he would understand them too. I stopped asking for anyone. I didn’t question why no messages came from them or why, during the week I lay there, waiting and recovering, I never heard their names spoken. I was too absorbed in my own search for the right path and my quiet but determined fight against despair to care much about Jack’s silence. I assumed he was holding back out of fear that I would insist on seeing them.

I kept repeating to myself, what would it be like when life resumed for all of us? We would pick up our relationships exactly as they had been before Geneviève fell ill. Boris and I would look into each other’s eyes, and there would be no bitterness, cowardice, or mistrust in that glance. I would be with them again for a little while in the warmth of their home, and then, without any pretense or explanation, I would vanish from their lives forever. Boris would understand; Geneviève—the only comfort was that she would never know. As I pondered this, I felt I had finally grasped the meaning of the obligation that had haunted me throughout my delirium, and the only possible answer to it.

So, when I felt ready, I called Jack over one day and said, “Jack, I want Boris right away; and please send my warmest regards to Geneviève…”

When Jack finally made it clear that both of them were gone, a wild rage surged through me, shattering the fragile strength I had managed to regain. I raged and cursed myself into a relapse, and when I finally crawled out of that dark place weeks later, I was a twenty-one-year-old who felt like his youth had slipped away forever. I thought I had reached the limit of my suffering, but one day, when Jack handed me a letter along with the keys to Boris’ house, I accepted them without flinching and asked him to tell me everything. It was cruel of me to demand it, but I felt I had no choice. He leaned wearily on his thin hands, preparing to reopen a wound that would never fully heal.

He began quietly.

“Alec, unless you have some clue that I’m unaware of, you won’t be able to explain what happened any better than I can. I suspect you’d rather not hear these details, but you need to know them. I wish I could spare you this, but I can’t. I’ll keep it brief.

“The day I left you in the doctor’s care and returned to Boris, I found him working on the ‘Fates.’ He told me Geneviève was sleeping under the influence of drugs, that she had been completely out of her mind. He kept working, not saying much, and I just watched him. Before long, I noticed that the third figure in the group—the one gazing straight ahead, out into the world—had his face. Not the way you remember it, but how it looked then and for the rest of his life. That’s something I wish I could understand, but I never will.

“So, he worked while I stayed silent, and we continued like that until nearly midnight. Then we heard the door open and shut sharply, followed by a rush in the next room. Boris dashed through the doorway, and I followed, but we were too late. She lay at the bottom of the pool, her hands crossed over her chest. Then Boris shot himself in the heart.”

Jack paused, beads of sweat forming under his eyes, his thin cheeks twitching. “I carried Boris to his room. Then I went back and drained that hellish liquid from the pool, turning on all the water to wash the marble clean of every drop. When I finally dared to descend the steps, I found her lying there, as white as snow. After deciding what to do, I went into the lab, emptied the solution in the basin down the waste pipe, and poured out the contents of every jar and bottle after it. There was wood in the fireplace, so I built a fire and broke the locks on Boris’ cabinet, burning every paper, notebook, and letter I found. I smashed all the empty bottles with a mallet, loaded them into a coal scuttle, and carried them to the cellar, tossing them over the red-hot coals of the furnace. I made that trip six times, and at last, there was nothing left that could help anyone search for the formula Boris had discovered. Only then did I feel brave enough to call the doctor. He’s a good man, and together we worked to keep it from the public. Without him, I never could have managed. Eventually, we paid the servants and sent them away to the countryside, where old Rosier kept them quiet with stories of Boris and Geneviève traveling to distant lands, from which they wouldn’t return for years. We buried Boris in the small cemetery at Sèvres. The doctor is a kind soul and knows when to show pity to someone who can’t take any more. He issued a death certificate for heart disease and didn’t ask me any questions.”

Then, lifting his head from his hands, he said, “Open the letter, Alec; it’s for both of us.”

I tore it open. It was Boris’ will, dated a year earlier. He left everything to Geneviève, and if she died childless, I was to take control of the house on Rue Sainte-Cécile, while Jack Scott would manage the property at Ept. Upon our deaths, the estate would revert to his mother’s family in Russia, except for the sculpted marbles he had created. Those he left to me.

The words blurred before our eyes, and Jack stood up and walked to the window. After a moment, he returned and sat down again. I dreaded what he might say, but he spoke with the same simplicity and gentleness.

“Geneviève lies before the Madonna in the marble room. The Madonna bends tenderly over her, and Geneviève smiles back at that calm face that would never have existed without her.”

His voice cracked, but he grasped my hand and said, “Courage, Alec.” The next morning, he left for Ept to fulfill his duty.