E. Hoffman Price

“ And thus it was that Diane learned that to live in Clarke's apartment would be to become an accessory to those precious fabrics that were his hard-ridden hobby; for no woman would fit into the dim, smoky shadows of that titled salon unless bejeweled and diaphanously veiled she could dance with curious paces and gestures beneath the sullen glow of the great brazen mosque lamp as became the favorite of a khan in far-off Tartary. ”

“ The end of life more vainly lived than the first. I knew that I was leaving this avatar after having lived but one stolen evening. So I sent a trusted servant to carry this very rug to Meshed. For when we met in the garden, you were hunting rugs for him who now seeks them for your delight. And I knew that he would find you if you still lived. Thus it is that I have crossed the Border, and stand before you as I did once before—this time on that very rug which I wove centuries ago, while living in hope of another meeting and in dread of the bowstring I knew would in the end find me. ”

“ Catch yourself losing yourself in the thrill of its three hundred years, wondering that all the ecstasy ever lost in the entire world could be imprisoned in a rug. Then see your one and only and otherwise adequate husband sitting of an evening, hours at a stretch, staring at it and dreaming of all the richness and glamor he's lost through becoming civilized, learning to wear shoes, and having only one woman, and she his wife, about the house. ”

“ The moon patch had marched toward the end of the rug from Samarcand, and was cutting into the blue web at its end. Clarke knew that when there remained no more room for her tiny feet, she would vanish, not ever to reappear. But Clarke hoped against knowledge.
"Yellow Girl," he entreated, "my door will be barred to friend and acquaintance alike, if you will but return on whatever nights the moon creeps across our rug...."
Had Diane, listening at the door, understood, she would have used her key. But Diane merely heard:
"And I shall wait for these nights as long as life remains in me. ”

“ But unheard-of things happen in Turkestan; and while one may pause for an evening's glamor beside some moon-kissed fountain in the valley of Zarab-shan, and then march on, forgetting, there is that which does not forget, being undying and everlasting; so that though forgotten, it reaches forth across time and space, not only clinging to the pile of a rug from Samarcand, but resorting even to express trucks to carry it the last step toward capturing the forgetful one.... ”

“ That damned rug is driving me crazy——"
"Is, or has driven?" suggested Clarke.
"Lies there like a beast of prey just ready to wake. And you sit there, night after night, staring at it until you fall asleep in your chair. Does it go, or do I?"
"What do you want me to do? Throw it away?"
"I don't care what you do with it. Only I won't stay in the house with it. It gives me the creeps. You've said entirely too much in your sleep lately—first yellow rugs, and now it's a yellow girl. I'm through!"
Clarke's brows rose in Saracenic arches. ”

“ Now, if you'd married Peter"—Louise laughed metallically—"he'd never have given you time to be jealous of a rug."
"That's just it," flared Diane. "I could forgive flirtations and black eyes, and a reasonable degree of non-support. But these damned rugs—look at that!"
Diane dug her cobraskin toe into the closely worn nap of the Feraghan carpet.
"Look at it! Just a rug, the first time. But live with it day after day. See the witchery sparkling in it at sunset. ”

“ Into his masterwork the weaver wove his soul; so that whoever lives with one of those imperishable sorceries that come out of the East must in the end feel its presence unless he be somewhat duller than the very wood of the loom on which it was woven. ”

“ And then Clarke's wondering, triumphant eyes clouded as he thought of a girl beside whom Samarcand and Bokhara were but the tinkle of brazen anklets—a very long time ago, when there was no Diane, when Clarke pursued rugs for that same Siraganian who now sought them for Clarke. ”

“ Thus it was in the beginning——"
"Ah ... how it does come back to me," interrupted Clarke, "as in a dream dimly remembered. How compactly and stiflingly they would wrap me in a bale of silk and carry me past the guards and into your presence. And by what devious routes I would leave you ... yes, and how painlessly swift is the stroke of a simitar...."
The Yellow Girl shuddered.
"A simitar truly wielded is really nothing, after all," continued Clarke. "I might have been sawn asunder between planks.... ”