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crooked_ear_llama“The Street of the Four Winds,” like “The Demoiselle d’Ys,” has two opening quotes. The first is from Paul Verlaine’s 1869 song, “En Sourdine.” An official translator says that the title means “Muted,” but I actually like Google Translate’s version, “In a Hushed Tone,” better:
“Ferme tes yeux à demi,
Croise tes bras sur ton sein,
Et de ton cœur endormi
Chasse à jamais tout dessein.”
The translation I found for it is:
“Half-close your eyes,
Fold your arms across your breast,
And from your heart now lulled to rest
Banish forever all intent.”
The second quote is a mystery; it isn’t from the same song as the first quote. I can’t find a source for it, and I have looked in multiple places. I found one reference that says that no one knows the source for it. It’s possible that it’s some obscure fin-de-siècle French song that Chambers liked but that not enough people liked to preserve it. It’s also possible that Chambers just wrote this one himself.
“Je chante la nature,
Les étoiles du soir, les larmes du matin,
Les couchers de soleil à l’horizon lointain,
Le ciel qui parle au cœur d’existence future!”
Translation:
“I sing of nature,
The stars of evening, the tears of morning,
The sunsets on the distant horizon,
The sky that speaks to the heart of future existence!”
Just taking the last two lines of each quote makes for an interesting contrast. On one hand, we have someone taking in the moment and “banishing all intent,” seemingly dismissing the future forever. On the other, we have the anticipation of “future existence,” eagerly embracing what’s to come.
When we get to the story itself, the first thing I note is that this is the first story in this volume told in the third-person. Our main character is a painter named Severn, but we aren’t in his head. We start with an “animal paus[ing] on the threshold, interrogative, alert, ready for flight if necessary. Severn la[ys] down his palette, and held out a hand of welcome. The cat remain[s] motionless, her yellow eyes fastened upon Severn.”
Fortunately for the cat, Severn is an animal lover. He invites her in. He comes to see her, pets her, and asks her what she wants. She gives him a look that he correctly interprets as, “I’m hungry,” so he gives her a saucer filled with milk along with some breadcrumbs. She happily eats all of it, then gives herself a bath. Severn tells her that she “need[s] it.” She “flatten[s] one ear” at that remark, presumably to tell Severn that that was a very rude thing for a host to say to his guest, “but [she] neither turned nor interrupted her toilet” and just finishes her bath.
Once she’s cleaned herself up, Severn notices that she would be a very pretty cat if she were healthy, but she’s obviously fallen on hard times. “Nature…intended her for a white cat,” but the implication is that she’s so dirty that it’s hard to tell. Moreover “her fur ha[s] disappeared in patches, from disease or the chances of war, her tail [is] bony and her spine sharp.” But Severn assures her that “[she is] greatly improved, and when [she] recover[s her] plumage [she] will be a gorgeous bird.” The cat is pleased that Severn has recovered his manners, and she “marche[s] around and around his legs, pushing her head between them and making pleased remarks.”
Severn asks her “what sent [her] here…into the Street of the Four Winds, and up five flights to the very door where [she] would be welcome? [Is she] a Latin Quarter cat as [he is] a Latin Quarter man?”
Upon examining her, however, Severn realizes that she has a collar of sorts: a “rose-coloured garter, flowered so quaintly and fastened with a silver clasp.” He speculates that “its owner is [her] owner…some aged dame living in memory of youthful vanities, fond, doting on [the cat], decorating [her] with her intimate personal attire.”
Of course, there’s an obvious problem with that: if this “aged dame” so dotes on the cat, then why is the cat wandering around ungroomed and half-starved? I suppose it’s possible that the cat is very lost, but you’d think that Severn would speculate on that. He doesn’t. He honestly doesn’t seem to see any contradiction between believing that this cat is someone’s beloved pet and its terrible condition.
Instead, Severn decides to speculate on the weight of the cat’s owner, because that’s incredibly relevant. He notes that the cat’s “neck is thin, and the garter fits [her],” which would suggest that the garter’s owner is skinny, but on the other hand, “the garter is capable of being much enlarged. These small silver-rimmed eyelets, of which [he] count[s] five, are proof of that. And…the fifth eyelet is worn out, as though the tongue of the clasp were accustomed to lie there.” He also speculates on “why should [her] mistress decorate [her] with an article most necessary to her at all times? Anyway, at most times.” He comes up with a mental picture of “the caprice of a moment…[as] she sat up among the pillows, her coiled hair tumbling to her shoulders, as [the cat] sprang upon the bed purring: ‘Good-day, my lady,’” when the “grand dame” decided to “slip this bit of silk and silver about [her] neck.”
Severn goes on to speculate about the cat’s owner, with zero evidence to back him up: “She is very beautiful—your mistress…and her hair is heavy as burnished gold. I could paint her,—not on canvas—for I should need shades…more splendid than the iris of a splendid rainbow. I could only paint her with closed eyes.… For her eyes, I must have azure from skies…. For her lips, roses from the palaces of slumberland, and for her brow, snow-drifts from mountains…. She is—very—beautiful, your mistress.”
Severn falls asleep while imagining this beautiful and entirely fictional woman. The cat seems to think this is a good idea and naps next to him.
When he wakes up, Severn realizes that it’s suppertime and he has only “one silver franc” to buy food for both himself and the cat. He decides that the cat will need a bit of beef and milk, and he’ll have “an egg and some white bread.” He leaves to get their supper. The cat is left alone and takes the opportunity to explore this new place, “sneez[ing] at a pot of turpentine…and…satisfy[ing] her curiosity concerning a roll of red modelling wax.” All in all, she seems to approve of this place as a potential new cat home, and when Severn returns, she’s “joyous and demonstrative, march[ing] around him, rubbing her gaunt body against his legs, driving her head enthusiastically into his hand, and purring until her voice mounted to a squeal.”
Severn feeds her and himself. Once they’ve eaten, he shares some news: he’s “found out where [the cat’s] mistress lives. It is not very far away;—it is here, under this same leaky roof, but in the north wing which [he] had supposed was uninhabited.” Apparently, the cat and her mistress are both well known in the neighborhood, and the building janitor, the local butcher, the local baker, and a sculpture who lives on the ground floor all recognized them. Of course, “well-known” does not mean “well-liked”; “old Cabane the baker identified [the cat] with needless sarcasm,” and as for the human, three of the four witnesses “say she is idle and vain and pleasure-loving; they say she is harebrained and reckless.” Admittedly, the sculpture believes that “she [is] very good and very beautiful,” and that’s the version Severn is planning to accept. However, the sculpture admits that “he has only seen her once, and does not know her name.” All of the service people seem to share the baker’s opinion that “into this cursed Street of the Four Winds, the four winds blow all things evil,” and she’s one of those evil things. I think I’m inclined to accept their version over the sculpture’s.
Severn removes the garter from the cat’s neck and notices that there’s a name on it: “Sylvia Elven. Sylvia is a woman’s name, Elven is the name of a town.” He’s not sure how much stock he should put on this, given that “in this Street of the Four Winds, names are worn and put away as the fashions change with the seasons.” But it’s a curious coincidence because he “know[s] the little town of Elven, for there I met Fate face to face and Fate was unkind.” And even more curious, “Fate had another name, and that name was Sylvia.”
But, of course, there’s no reason to believe that there’s any connection between the woman named Sylvia from the town of Elven that he fell in love with years ago and the fact that there’s a Sylvia Elven apparently living in his own building. After all “the world is wide and Elven is not unknown” and surely Sylvia is such a common name that any number of girls could have it. Most definitely, the cat’s “Sylvia is not [his] Sylvia.”
Do I smell Dead Herring here?
Further, I think it’s worth noting that Elven is a small place; even in in the 2020s, it has a population of less than seven thousand; it’s not like there would be hundreds of girls named Sylvia from Elven wandering around.
He decides that it’s time to take the cat home. He picks it up and carries it back to the north wing, “to a closed door.” He knocks, and after a while, “something move[s] behind the door; it open[s] and he [goes] in.” There are no lights, and he’s eventually forced to light a candle to see around the apartment. There’s no one visible, but there’s a bed whose curtains block the view of anyone who might be in it. On the floor, he sees “one garter of rosy silk, quaintly flowered and fitted with a silver clasp,” the match to the garter the cat was wearing.
Severn goes over to the bed and pulls back the curtains. There’s a woman in the bed and “his eyes met two other eyes, wide open, smiling, and the candle-flame flashed over hair heavy as gold.” He notes that she’s “pale, but not as white as he; her eyes were untroubled as a child’s.” And apparently it is his Sylvia, because he says to her, “Sylvia, it is I.” She doesn’t speak back, though. He “know[s] that she [is] dead.” But despite knowing that, he “kisse[s] her on the mouth.”
Yeah, that’s just nasty. Especially considering that she’s probably been dead for several days. The fact that the garter on the floor matches the one on the the cat’s neck suggests that she was wearing the gaters the day before she died, and probably put one of them on the cat as she was undressing. That in turn suggests that the cat was still with her until her death. And the cat didn’t get into the shape it was in at the start of the story in just a few hours.
Severn sits there mourning her while “the cat purr[s] on his knee, tightening and relaxing her padded claws, until the sky pale[s] above the Street of the Four Winds.”
Well, at least the cat will probably be okay.
Given how pets have fared in these stories, I was worried about her. But she’s fallen into the care of someone who treats her like a companion, who makes sure she’s fed, and seems to enjoy having her around. She, in turn, seems to like Severn. I suspect that she will be happy living in his studio, and she’ll probably make him happier in return.
I wonder a bit at Severn’s name. It’s not a common one. I’m not sure if it’s a misspelling of Séverin or if it’s a reference to either the river in Britain or the one in Maryland.
Beyond that, it’s hard to come up with too much to say here. An artist found a cat that led him to his lost love. She seems to have fallen on hard times since he last saw her and died of unknown causes. If the tradespeople around where she lives are any indication, she apparently wasn’t very nice in her later years—although, given that Severn mentioned that “Fate [in the form of Sylvia] was unkind” when he met her in Elven, there’s some doubt as to whether she ever was a good person. It’s a decent, self-contained story, but it’s hard to see anything in it that relates to the broader themes of The King in Yellow.
It doesn’t seem as though I’m the only one who feels that way. I notice that on The King in Yellow Fan Wiki, there’s not much on this story other than wondering if this Sylvia is related to the one that Mr. Scott mentioned in “The Yellow Sign” or the one in the next story, “The Street of the First Shell.” There’s also speculation that the cat “sneezing at a pot of turpentine” was meant to be a reference to the turpentine that Mr. Scott blamed for ruining his study of Tessie in “Yellow Sign.”
As far as that second one goes, I can almost certainly say, “No.” Severn has a pot of turpentine because he’s a painter, the same reason that Mr. Scott did. Heck, I have a jar of turpentine, even though I only paint at home once every six months or so, because it is literally impossible to paint with oils without it (okay, technically what I have is Bob Ross Odorless Paint Thinner, but I don’t think that brand was available in 1895). An artist having an open pot of turpentine in his studio is about as notable as a dining room table having chairs around it.
Whether this Sylvia is Mr. Scott’s Sylvia…impossible to say. We know nothing about Mr. Scott’s lady except that her name is Sylvia and she was from Brittany. And while this woman is named Sylvia and from Brittany, that’s pretty little to go on. There’s nothing to contradict it, admittedly, but Elven is a small town, and there can’t be that many girls named Sylvia there. Brittany is a large area with a population in the millions, and there are likely quite a lot of Sylvias in all of Brittany. As to whether she’s the same Sylvia in “The Street of the First Shell,” I guess I’ll have an opinion on that next time.
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Date: 2026-03-13 09:08 pm (UTC)It probably goes without saying at this point, but thanks once again for tracing the first quote's origin! For the second one, I'm inclined to agree that Chambers wrote it himself; it feels... I don't want to say "simple", but definitely cautious in a way that makes sense for a non-native speaker (and "Je chante la nature" sounds definitely off to me, something that I seem to be right in according to this page).
When we get to the story itself, the first thing I note is that this is the first story in this volume told in the third-person.
I see that all of the stories from this point on will be in third person, which strengthens my impression that this book will turn out to consist of two quite disparate parts: the King in Yellow part, and the romance stories part. I'll see just how big the contrast is at the end.
Whatever else we'll get in this story, the cat's one thing I really like about the story, and it's good to see that Severn takes her in!
_garter and owner's weight)
Though I can't check it right now, I'm fairly certain that a cat's neck is thinner than a human leg, and since garters go just below the knee (on a somewhat thicker part of the leg), I doubt this would indicate that the owner was especially heavy.
He also speculates on “why should [her] mistress decorate [her] with an article most necessary to her at all times?
Maybe because this was an old one, and she could easily afford a new one, so why not give it to her cat?
If Severn did find the canvas he has enough, I bet he could get quite a good painting out of it (which might work well for him, since he's not very rich). It is a bit silly that he speculates so much on the cat's owner without a shred of evidence, I find.
Yeah, he's trying to convince himself it isn't the Sylvia he knows a little too hard here... and I see that Elven had less than 3000 inhabitants in 1968, and presumably even less in 1895, which makes it all the likelier that this isn't a coincidence.
He knocks, and after a while, “something move[s] behind the door; it open[s] and he [goes] in.”
I wonder who or what opened it if Sylvia is dead...?
She doesn’t speak back, though. He “know[s] that she [is] dead.”
Hmmm, I'd expected something more climactic from this story, though it does fit with the general mood of it.
It's good as a mood piece, but it doesn't do much beyond that, so I suppose you just have to be in the mood for it. At least the cat is doing well!
I'll see you for the next story, then!
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Date: 2026-03-16 06:36 pm (UTC)As of Story #8, definitely true, although arguably "The Demoiselle D'Ys" fits better with the King in Yellow section, despite having no direct ties and being a romance, while "The Prophet's Paradise" doesn't fit with either.
He also speculates on “why should [her] mistress decorate [her] with an article most necessary to her at all times?”
Maybe because this was an old one, and she could easily afford a new one, so why not give it to her cat?
Or possibly she broke the other one, so needed a new pair anyway, and in a nice bit of recycling, decided to make the one she still had left into a collar!
There are a number of explanations other than the one Chambers was obviously going for, trying to hint that she was dead and no longer needed her garter.
I wonder who or what opened it if Sylvia is dead...?
I did consider that a bit. Hard to say if it's supposed to be a ghost or if it's just that Severn's banging on the door managed to unlatch it.
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Date: 2026-03-16 08:48 pm (UTC)As of Story #8, definitely true, although arguably "The Demoiselle D'Ys" fits better with the King in Yellow section, despite having no direct ties and being a romance, while "The Prophet's Paradise" doesn't fit with either.
That's the same division I had in mind (with "The Prophets' Paradise" dividing the two parts)! "The Demoiselle d'Ys" is certainly closer in style to the stories about the King in Yellow.
That explanation works well, too. I suppose that's the danger of having the lead character speculating a lot without solid evidence, and given the previous stories, I'm more inclined to draw my own conclusions.
I guess it's the latter, given that the story doesn't seem to have supernatural elements otherwise, but it could go either way.