# Geneviève — The King in Yellow character guide

> Geneviève in The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0017-the-demoiselle-d-ys

## Snapshot

A marble-pure presence haunting a sculptor's studio, Geneviève moves through the Parisian tales as muse, model, and impossible beloved.

## Who they are

Geneviève is the woman whose face the narrator of 'The Demoiselle d'Ys' longs for daily, whose hands he remembers on the spinet keys, whose marble likeness he kneels before in the sealed room. She is both flesh and stone, a living woman who sat for the Madonna and a figure so still she seems carved. Her absence drives the narrator's passion and his dread, and her ambiguous nature — saint or statue, memory or ghost — gives the story its ache.

## Relationships

### [Boris Yvain](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_king_in_yellow_se/characters/boris_yvain)

_romantic_

Boris Yvain is deeply in love with Geneviève, but their relationship is strained by his volatile temperament and her independence.

### [Boris Yvain](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_king_in_yellow_se/characters/boris_yvain)

_romantic_

Boris Yvain is deeply in love with Geneviève, but their relationship is strained by his volatile temperament and her independence.

### [Boris Yvain](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_king_in_yellow_se/characters/boris_yvain)

_romantic_

Boris Yvain is deeply in love with Geneviève, but their relationship is strained by his volatile temperament and her independence.

## In the story

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_king_in_yellow_se/chapters/i)

Lovely woman loved by both Boris and Alec; variable mood; sits for Boris's Madonna.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_king_in_yellow_se/chapters/ii)

Plays sad music on the spinet in the dark, falls and sprains her ankle, is helped by the narrator.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_king_in_yellow_se/chapters/iii)

Falls ill with fever, confesses her love for the narrator, and later dies; lies before the Madonna in the marble room.

### [IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_king_in_yellow_se/chapters/iv)

Lying in the marble room, initially appearing as a marble statue, then awakening alive.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_king_in_yellow_se/characters/genevieve
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_king_in_yellow_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_king_in_yellow_se/characters