Paul Kelver | Page 3

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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