ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

Original publication date: 1895

THE KING IN YELLOW
IS DEDICATED
TO
MY BROTHER

CONTENTS

THE REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS

THE MASK

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

“Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink behind 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

“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 had
practically completed the programme, adopted during the last months
of President Winthrop’s administration. The country was apparently
tranquil. Everybody knows how the Tariff and Labour questions were
settled. The war with Germany, incident on that country’s seizure of
the Samoan Islands, had left no visible scars upon the republic, and
the temporary occupation of Norfolk by the invading army had been
forgotten in the joy over repeated naval victories, and the subsequent
ridiculous plight of General Von Gartenlaube’s forces in the State of
New Jersey. The Cuban and Hawaiian investments had paid one hundred per
cent and the territory of Samoa was well worth its cost as a coaling
station. The country was in a superb state of defence. Every coast
city had been well supplied with land fortifications; the army under
the parental eye of the General Staff, organized according to the
Prussian system, had been increased to 300,000 men, with a territorial
reserve of a million; and six magnificent squadrons of cruisers and
battle-ships patrolled the six stations of the navigable seas, leaving
a steam reserve amply fitted to control home waters. The gentlemen from
the West had at last been constrained to acknowledge that a college
for the training of diplomats was as necessary as law schools are for
the training of barristers; consequently we were no longer represented
abroad by incompetent patriots. The nation was prosperous; Chicago, for
a moment paralyzed after a second great fire, had risen from its ruins,
white and imperial, and more beautiful than the white city which had
been built for its plaything in 1893. Everywhere good architecture was
replacing bad, and even in New York, a sudden craving for decency had
swept away a great portion of the existing horrors. Streets had been
widened, properly paved and lighted, trees had been planted, squares
laid out, elevated structures demolished and underground roads built to
replace them. The new government buildings and barracks were fine bits
of architecture, and the long system of stone quays which completely
surrounded the island had been turned into parks which proved a
god-send to the population. The subsidizing of the state theatre and
state opera brought its own reward. The United States National Academy
of Design was much like European institutions of the same kind. Nobody
envied the Secretary of Fine Arts, either his cabinet position or his
portfolio. The Secretary of Forestry and Game Preservation had a much
easier time, thanks to the new system of National Mounted Police. We
had profited well by the latest treaties with France and England; the
exclusion of foreign-born Jews as a measure of self-preservation, the
settlement of the new independent negro state of Suanee, the checking
of immigration, the new laws concerning naturalization, and the gradual
centralization of power in the executive all contributed to national
calm and prosperity. When the Government solved the Indian problem and
squadrons of Indian cavalry scouts in native costume were substituted
for the pitiable organizations tacked on to the tail of skeletonized
regiments by a former Secretary of War, the nation drew a long sigh of
relief. When, after the colossal Congress of Religions, bigotry and
intolerance were laid in their graves and kindness and charity began to
draw warring sects together, many thought the millennium had arrived,
at least in the new world which after all is a world by itself.

But self-preservation is the first law, and the United States had to
look on in helpless sorrow as Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium writhed
in 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 the
dismantling of the Elevated Railroads. The summer of 1900 will live in
the memories of New York people for many a cycle; the Dodge Statue was
removed in that year. In the following winter began that agitation for
the repeal of the laws prohibiting suicide which bore its final fruit
in the month of April, 1920, when the first Government Lethal Chamber
was opened on Washington Square.