Paul Kelver | Page 3

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Scanned and proofed by Ron Burkey ([email protected]). Items in [brackets] are editorial comments added in proofing. Italicized text is delimited by underscores. The pound (currency) symbol has been replaced by the word "pound".
Paul Kelver By Jerome K. Jerome
CONTENTS.
PROLOGUE
BOOK I
I. PAUL, ARRIVED IN A STRANGE LAND, LEARNS MANY THINGS, AND GOES TO MEET THE MAN IN GREY
II. IN WHICH PAUL MAKES ACQUAINTANCE OF THE MAN WITH THE UGLY MOUTH
III. HOW GOOD LUCK KNOCKED AT THE DOOR OF THE MAN IN GREY
IV. PAUL, FALLING IN WITH A GOODLY COMPANY OF PILGRIMS, LEARNS OF THEM THE ROAD THAT HE MUST TRAVEL, AND MEETS THE PRINCESS OF THE GOLDEN LOCKS
V. IN WHICH THERE COMES BY ONE BENT UPON PURSUING HIS OWN WAY
VI. OF THE SHADOW THAT CAME BETWEEN THE MAN IN GREY AND THE LADY OF THE LOVE-LIT EYES
VII. OF THE PASSING OF THE SHADOW
VIII. HOW THE MAN IN GREY MADE READY FOR HIS GOING
IX. OF THE FASHIONING OF PAUL
X. IN WHICH PAUL IS SHIPWRECKED, AND CAST INTO DEEP WATERS
BOOK II.
I. DESCRIBES THE DESERT ISLAND TO WHICH PAUL WAS DRIFTED
II. PAUL, ESCAPING FROM HIS SOLITUDE, FALLS INTO STRANGE COMPANY, AND BECOMES CAPTIVE TO ONE OF HAUGHTY MIEN
III. GOOD FRIENDS SHOW PAUL THE ROAD TO FREEDOM. BUT BEFORE SETTING OUT, HE WILL GO A-VISITING
IV. LEADS TO A MEETING
V. HOW ON A SWEET GREY MORNING THE FUTURE CAME TO PAUL
VI. OF THE GLORY AND GOODNESS AND THE EVIL THAT GO TO THE MAKING OF LOVE
VII. HOW PAUL SET FORTH UPON A QUEST
VIII. AND HOW CAME BACK AGAIN
IX. THE PRINCESS OF THE GOLDEN LOCKS SENDS PAUL A RING
X. PAUL FINDS HIS WAY
PAUL KELVER
PROLOGUE.
IN WHICH THE AUTHOR SEEKS TO CAST THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THIS STORY UPON ANOTHER.
At the corner of a long, straight, brick-built street in the far East End of London--one of those lifeless streets, made of two drab walls upon which the level lines, formed by the precisely even window-sills and doorsteps, stretch in weary perspective from end to end, suggesting petrified diagrams proving dead problems--stands a house that ever draws me to it; so that often, when least conscious of my footsteps, I awake to find myself hurrying through noisy, crowded thoroughfares, where flaring naphtha lamps illumine fierce, patient, leaden-coloured faces; through dim-lit, empty streets, where monstrous shadows come and go upon the close-drawn blinds; through narrow, noisome streets, where the gutters swarm with children, and each ever-open doorway vomits riot; past reeking corners, and across waste places, till at last I reach the dreary goal of my memory-driven desire, and, coming to a halt beside the broken railings, find rest.
The house, larger than its fellows, built when the street was still a country lane, edging the marshes, strikes a strange note of individuality amid the surrounding harmony of hideousness. It is encompassed on two sides by what was once a garden, though now but a barren patch of stones and dust where clothes--it is odd any one should have thought of washing--hang in perpetuity; while about the door continue the remnants of a porch, which the stucco falling has left exposed in all its naked insincerity.
Occasionally I drift hitherward in the day time, when slatternly women gossip round the area gates, and the silence is broken by the hoarse, wailing cry of "Coals--any coals--three and sixpence a sack--co-o-o-als!" chanted in a tone that absence of response has stamped with chronic melancholy; but then the street knows me not, and my old friend of the corner, ashamed of its shabbiness in the unpitying sunlight, turns its face away, and will not see me as I pass.
Not until the Night, merciful alone of all things to the ugly, draws her veil across its sordid features will it, as some fond old nurse, sought out in after years, open wide its arms to welcome me. Then the teeming life it now shelters, hushed for a time within its walls, the flickering flare from the "King of Prussia" opposite extinguished, will it talk with me of the past, asking me many questions, reminding me of many things I had forgotten. Then into the silent street come the well-remembered footsteps; in and out the creaking gate pass, not seeing me, the well-remembered faces; and we talk concerning them; as two cronies, turning the torn leaves of some old album where the faded portraits in forgotten