The Sea Peoples(63)
“Most satisfactorily, Mr. Castaigne,” the alienist—that was the title on his diploma on the wall—said.
“Indeed, I do owe you a debt of gratitude,” Castaigne said.
“Ah!” Archer said, looking interested. “That constitutes progress! How do you conceive of that debt?”
“Why, Doctor, the fall from my horse . . . and the, ah, tuition here . . . has changed my whole character for the better. From a lazy young man about town, I have become active, energetic, temperate, and above all—oh, above all else—ambitious. Not least because my convalescence broadened my horizons.”
He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a slim volume with a cover of soft leather. “For example, I read this. I heartily recommend it to you, Doctor! It will broaden your mind too!”
Archer idly opened the book, then whipped back his hand as if it were red-hot.
“My God,” he blurted. “The King in Yellow!”
“The very same,” Castaigne said, amusement in his voice. “I remember after finishing the first act that it occurred to me that I had better stop. I started up and flung the book into the fireplace; the volume struck the barred grate and fell open on the hearth in the firelight . . . you see how it is slightly singed? If I had not caught a glimpse of the opening words in the second act I should never have finished it, but as I stooped to pick it up, my eyes became riveted to the open page.”
He leaned forward and tapped a finger. “Riveted just here, Doctor. Where the Yellow Sign appears above the words of Cassilda, as Hastur . . .”
Archer’s eyes dropped to the point he indicated as Castaigne’s voice trailed off. Then they became locked, and sweat broke out on his brow. For perhaps thirty seconds he read, and turned the page with a trembling hand, then wrenched his gaze away.
“This book is illegal; it has been banned throughout the civilized world!”
“Easier to ban in theory than to banish in fact,” Castaigne said, with catlike malice. “Though perhaps you should not mention how I have made you a present of this copy.”
Archer nodded, absently, as if he had not heard the words with his conscious mind.
Castaigne went on: “When the French Government seized the translated copies which had just arrived in Paris, London, of course, became eager to read it. So it has gone throughout the world; the play is barred out here, confiscated there, denounced by Press and pulpit, censured even by the most advanced of literary anarchists. Yet it spreads.”
“It spreads like a disease!”
“Oh, come now, Doctor. You are a man of science, of reason. One who seeks to lay bare the secrets of the human mind, not as poetry or superstition, but as cold fact like engineering or the removal of a diseased appendix! If this play affects men’s minds, surely you must study it to find out the mechanism by which a mere form of words can unbalance the psyche!”
“Perhaps,” Archer said. “Yes, perhaps . . . for science . . .”
With a convulsive gesture he swept the slim book off his desk into a drawer, licking his lips as he shut it away with a small key and tucking the key with trembling fingers into a pocket in his waistcoat.
Chuckling to himself, Castaigne left the doctor sitting at his desk, sweat running down into his starched collar, fingering the key in his pocket and staring ahead with a fixed glare that held an awful hunger.
Hildred chuckled again at the thought of the hunger and of its satisfaction, and made his way back to Bleecker Street, followed it to Wooster, skirted the grounds of the Lethal Chamber, and crossing Washington Park went straight to his rooms in the Benedick.
About what a well-to-do townsman who wasn’t married might have, John thought, looking through another man’s eyes. Or the rooms a country knight might keep for visits to Portland . . . not quite enough for a baron, who’d have a bigger entourage.
The electric lights were fascinating—Hildred took them for granted—but otherwise it was like those of many friends among Portland’s artists and musicians. The more successful ones, who weren’t living in boarding-houses or their parent’s quarters, that was. This Castaigne evidently employed a cook and two housemaids, which was again about what you’d expect. The details were different, of course; the outlines of the overstuffed furniture, the number and type of knickknacks, and the rather florid, Renaissance-derived style of the paintings as opposed to the way the Protectorate’s descended from the pre-Raphaelites and Art Nouveau.
One of the housemaids brought out Castaigne’s lunch; a rather heavy omelet made with oysters and cream, a tasty seafood soup of clams and cod in tomato broth, rolls and fruit and a mediocre and over-sweet white wine. John found that he could taste it all, but for a moment it made him miserably aware that his real body was starving, and then that it was tied in an excruciatingly painful position.
If that is my real body, John thought. But it’s close enough for government work.
While he ate and read newspapers named the Herald and Meteor full of local news that was meaningless if you didn’t know the context, he looked out his window at the Lethal Chamber on the corner of the square opposite. A few curious people still lingered about the gilded iron railing, but inside the grounds the paths were deserted. He watched the fountains ripple and sparkle; the sparrows had already found this new bathing nook, and the basins were covered with the dusty-feathered little things. Two or three white peacocks picked their way across the lawns, and a drab-colored pigeon sat so motionless on the arm of one of the “Fates,” that it seemed to be a part of the sculptured stone.