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The King in Yellow by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
page 21 of 288 (07%)
three and three-quarter minutes which it is necessary to wait, while the
time lock is opening, are to me golden moments. From the instant I set
the combination to the moment when I grasp the knobs and swing back
the solid steel doors, I live in an ecstasy of expectation. Those moments
must be like moments passed in Paradise. I know what I am to find at
the end of the time limit. I know what the massive safe holds secure for
me, for me alone, and the exquisite pleasure of waiting is hardly enhanced
when the safe opens and I lift, from its velvet crown, a diadem of purest
gold, blazing with diamonds. I do this every day, and yet the joy of
waiting and at last touching again the diadem, only seems to increase as
the days pass. It is a diadem fit for a King among kings, an Emperor
among emperors. The King in Yellow might scorn it, but it shall be worn
by his royal servant.

I held it in my arms until the alarm in the safe rang harshly, and then
tenderly, proudly, I replaced it and shut the steel doors. I walked
slowly back into my study, which faces Washington Square, and leaned on
the window sill. The afternoon sun poured into my windows, and a gentle
breeze stirred the branches of the elms and maples in the park, now
covered with buds and tender foliage. A flock of pigeons circled about
the tower of the Memorial Church; sometimes alighting on the purple tiled
roof, sometimes wheeling downward to the lotos fountain in front of the
marble arch. The gardeners were busy with the flower beds around the
fountain, and the freshly turned earth smelled sweet and spicy. A lawn
mower, drawn by a fat white horse, clinked across the green sward, and
watering-carts poured showers of spray over the asphalt drives. Around
the statue of Peter Stuyvesant, which in 1897 had replaced the
monstrosity supposed to represent Garibaldi, children played in the
spring sunshine, and nurse girls wheeled elaborate baby carriages with a
reckless disregard for the pasty-faced occupants, which could probably be
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