CHAPTER VI

Our world of to-day is puny indeed beside the antique world. Our

banquets are mean, niggardly, compared with the appalling sumptuousness

of the Roman patricians and the princes of ancient Asia. Their ordinary

repasts would in these days be regarded as frenzied orgies, and a whole

modern city could subsist for eight days upon the leavings of one supper

given by Lucullus to a few intimate friends. With our miserable habits

we find it difficult to conceive of those enormous existences, realizing

everything vast, strange, and most monstrously impossible that

imagination could devise. Our palaces are mere stables, in which

Caligula would not quarter his horse. The retinue of our wealthiest

constitutional king is as nothing compared with that of a petty satrap

or a Roman proconsul. The radiant suns which once shone upon the earth

are forever extinguished in the nothingness of uniformity. Above the

dark swarm of men no longer tower those Titanic colossi who bestrode the

world in three paces, like the steeds of Homer; no more towers of

Lylacq; no giant Babel scaling the sky with its infinity of spirals; no

temples immeasurable, builded with the fragments of quarried mountains;

no kingly terraces for which successive ages and generations could each

erect but one step, and from whence some dreamfully reclining prince

might gaze on the face of the world as upon a map unfolded; no more of

those extravagantly vast cities of cyclopæan edifices, inextricably

piled upon one another, with their mighty circumvallations, their

circuses roaring night and day, their reservoirs filled with ocean brine

and peopled with whales and leviathans, their colossal stairways, their

super-imposition of terraces, their tower-summits bathed in clouds,

their giant palaces, their aqueducts, their multitude-vomiting gates,

their shadowy necropoli. Alas! henceforth only plaster hives upon

chessboard pavements.

One marvels that men did not revolt against such confiscation of all

riches and all living forces for the benefit of a few privileged ones,

and that such exorbitant fantasies should not have encountered any

opposition on their bloody way. It was because those prodigious lives

were the realizations by day of the dreams which haunted each man by

night, the personifications of the common ideal which the nations beheld

living symbolized under one of those meteoric names that flame

inextinguishably through the night of ages. To-day, deprived of such

dazzling spectacles of omnipotent will, of the lofty contemplation of

some human mind whose least wish makes itself visible in actions

unparalleled, in enormities of granite and brass, the world becomes

irredeemably and hopelessly dull. Man is no longer represented in the

realization of his imperial fancy.

The story which we are writing, and the great name of Cleopatra which

appears in it, have prompted us to these reflections, so ill-sounding,

doubtless, to modern ears. But the spectacle of the antique world is

something so crushingly discouraging, even to those imaginations which

deem themselves exhaustless, and those minds which fancy themselves to

have conceived the utmost limits of fairy magnificence, that we cannot

here forbear recording our regret and lamentation that we were not

cotemporaries of Sardanapalus; of Teglathphalazar; of Cleopatra, queen

of Egypt; or even of Elagabalus, emperor of Rome and priest of the Sun.

It is our task to describe a supreme orgie--a banquet compared with

which the splendors of Belshazzar's feast must pale--one of Cleopatra's

nights. How can we picture forth in this French tongue, so chaste, so

icily prudish, that unbounded transport of passions, that huge and

mighty debauch which feared not to mingle the double purple of wine and

blood, those furious outbursts of insatiate pleasure, madly leaping

toward the Impossible with all the wild ardor of senses as yet untamed

by the long fast of Christianity?

The promised night should well have been a splendid one, for all the

joys and pleasures possible in a human lifetime were to be concentrated

into the space of a few hours. It was necessary that the life of

Meïamoun should be converted into a powerful elixir which he could

imbibe at a single draught. Cleopatra desired to dazzle her voluntary

victim, and plunge him into a whirlpool of dizzy pleasures; to

intoxicate and madden him with the wine of orgie, so that death, though

freely accepted, might come invisibly and unawares.

Let us transport our readers to the banquet-hall.

Our existing architecture offers few points for comparison with those

vast edifices whose very ruins resemble the crumblings of mountains

rather than the remains of buildings. It needed all the exaggeration of

the antique life to animate and fill those prodigious palaces, whose

halls were too lofty and vast to allow of any ceiling save the sky

itself--a magnificent ceiling, and well worthy of such mighty

architecture.

The banquet-hall was of enormous and Babylonian dimensions; the eye

could not penetrate its immeasurable depth. Monstrous columns--short,

thick, and solid enough to sustain the pole itself--heavily expanded

their broad-swelling shafts upon socles variegated with hieroglyphics,

and sustained upon their bulging capitals gigantic arcades of granite

rising by successive tiers, like vast stairways reversed. Between each

two pillars a colossal sphinx of basalt, crowned with the _pshent_, bent

forward her oblique-eyed face and horned chin, and gazed into the hall

with a fixed and mysterious look. The columns of the second tier,

receding from the first, were more elegantly formed, and crowned in lieu

of capitals with four female heads addorsed, wearing caps of many folds

and all the intricacies of the Egyptian headdress. Instead of sphinxes,

bull-headed idols--impassive spectators of nocturnal frenzy and the

furies of orgie--were seated upon thrones of stone, like patient hosts

awaiting the opening of the banquet.

A third story, constructed in a yet different style of architecture,

with elephants of bronze spouting perfume from their trunks, crowned the

edifice; above, the sky yawned like a blue gulf, and the curious stars

leaned over the frieze.[1]

Prodigious stairways of porphyry, so highly polished that they reflected

the human body like a mirror, ascended and descended on every hand, and

bound together these huge masses of architecture.

We can only make a very rapid sketch here, in order to convey some idea

of this awful structure, proportioned out of all human measurements. It

would require the pencil of Martin,[2] the great painter of enormities

passed away, and we can present only a weak pen-picture in lieu of the

Apocalyptic depth of his gloomy style; but imagination may supply our

deficiencies. Less fortunate than the painter and the musician, we can

only present objects and ideas separately in slow succession. We have as

yet spoken of the banquet-hall only, without referring to the guests,

and yet we have but barely indicated its character. Cleopatra and

Meïamoun are waiting for us. We see them drawing near....

Meïamoun was clad in a linen tunic constellated with stars, and a purple

mantle, and wore a fillet about his locks, like an Oriental king.

Cleopatra was apparelled in a robe of pale green, open at either side,

and clasped with golden bees. Two bracelets of immense pearls gleamed

around her naked arms; upon her head glimmered the golden-pointed

diadem. Despite the smile on her lips, a slight cloud of preoccupation

shadowed her fair forehead, and from time to time her brows became

knitted in a feverish manner. What thoughts could trouble the great

queen? As for Meïamoun, his face wore the ardent and luminous look of

one in ecstasy or vision; light beamed and radiated from his brow and

temples, surrounding his head with a golden nimbus, like one of the

twelve great gods of Olympus.

A deep, heartfelt joy illumined his every feature. He had embraced his

restless-winged chimera, and it had not flown from him; he had reached

the goal of his life. Though he were to live to the age of Nestor or

Priam, though he should behold his veined temples hoary with locks

whiter than those of the high priest of Ammon, he could never know

another new experience, never feel another new pleasure. His maddest

hopes had been so much more than realized that there was nothing in the

world left for him to desire.

Cleopatra seated him beside her upon a throne with golden griffins on

either side, and clapped her little hands together. Instantly lines of

fire, bands of sparkling light, outlined all the projections of the

architecture--the eyes of the sphinxes flamed with phosphoric

lightnings; the bull-headed idols breathed flame; the elephants, in lieu

of perfumed water, spouted aloft bright columns of crimson fire; arms of

bronze, each bearing a torch, started from the walls, and blazing

aigrettes bloomed in the sculptured hearts of the lotos flowers.

Huge blue flames palpitated in tripods of brass; giant candelabras shook

their dishevelled light in the midst of ardent vapors; everything

sparkled, glittered, beamed. Prismatic irises crossed and shattered each

other in the air. The facets of the cups, the angles of the marbles and

jaspers, the chiselling of the vases--all caught a sparkle, a gleam, or

a flash as of lightning. Radiance streamed in torrents and leaped from

step to step like a cascade, over the porphyry-stairways. It seemed the

reflection of a conflagration on some broad river. Had the Queen of

Sheba ascended thither she would have caught up the folds of her robe,

and believed herself walking in water, as when she stepped upon the

crystal pavements of Solomon. Viewed through that burning haze, the

monstrous figures of the colossi, the animals, the hieroglyphics, seemed

to become animated and to live with a factitious life; the black marble

rams bleated ironically, and clashed their gilded horns; the idols

breathed harshly through their panting nostrils.

The orgie was at its height: the dishes of phenicopters' tongues, and

the livers of scarus fish; the eels fattened upon human flesh, and

cooked in brine; the dishes of peacock's brains; the boars stuffed with

living birds; and all the marvels of the antique banquets were heaped

upon the three table-surfaces of the gigantic triclinium. The wines of

Crete, of Massicus, and of Falernus foamed up in cratera wreathed with

roses, and filled by Asiatic pages whose beautiful flowing hair served

the guests to wipe their hands upon. Musicians playing upon the sistrum,

the tympanum, the sambuke, and the harp with one-and-twenty strings

filled all the upper galleries, and mingled their harmonies with the

tempest of sound that hovered over the feast. Even the deep-voiced

thunder could not have made itself heard there.

Meïamoun, whose head was lying on Cleopatra's shoulder, felt as though

his reason were leaving him. The banquet-hall whirled around him like a

vast architectural nightmare; through the dizzy glare he beheld

perspectives and colonnades without end; new zones of porticoes seemed

to uprear themselves upon the real fabric, and bury their summits in

heights of sky to which Babel never rose. Had he not felt within his

hand the soft, cool hand of Cleopatra, he would have believed himself

transported into an enchanted world by some witch of Thessaly or Magian

of Persia.

Toward the close of the repast hump-backed dwarfs and mummers engaged

in grotesque dances and combats; then young Egyptian and Greek maidens,

representing the black and white Hours, danced with inimitable grace a

voluptuous dance after the Ionian manner.

Cleopatra herself arose from her throne, threw aside her royal mantle,

replaced her starry diadem with a garland of flowers, attached golden

_crotali_[3] to her alabaster hands, and began to dance before Meïamoun,

who was ravished with delight. Her beautiful arms, rounded like the

handles of an alabaster vase, shook out bunches of sparkling notes, and

her _crotali_ prattled with ever-increasing volubility. Poised on the

pink tips of her little feet, she approached swiftly to graze the

forehead of Meïamoun with a kiss; then she recommenced her wondrous art,

and flitted around him, now backward-leaning, with head reversed, eyes

half closed, arms lifelessly relaxed, locks uncurled and loose-hanging

like a Bacchante of Mount Mænalus; now again, active, animated,

laughing, fluttering, more tireless and capricious in her movements than

the pilfering bee. Heart-consuming love, sensual pleasure, burning

passion, youth inexhaustible and ever-fresh, the promise of bliss to

come--she expressed all....

The modest stars had ceased to contemplate the scene; their golden eyes

could not endure such a spectacle; the heaven itself was blotted out,

and a dome of flaming vapor covered the hall.

Cleopatra seated herself once more by Meïamoun. Night advanced; the last

of the black Hours was about to take flight; a faint blue glow entered

with bewildered aspect into the tumult of ruddy light as a moonbeam

falls into a furnace; the upper arcades became suffused with pale azure

tints--day was breaking.

Meïamoun took the horn vase which an Ethiopian slave of sinister

countenance presented to him, and which contained a poison so violent

that it would have caused any other vase to burst asunder. Flinging his

whole life to his mistress in one last look, he lifted to his lips the

fatal cup in which the envenomed liquor boiled up, hissing.

Cleopatra turned pale, and laid her hand on Meïamoun's arm to stay the

act. His courage touched her. She was about to say, "Live to love me

yet, I desire it!..." when the sound of a clarion was heard. Four

heralds-at-arms entered the banquet-hall on horseback; they were

officers of Mark Antony, and rode but a short distance in advance of

their master. Cleopatra silently loosened the arm of Meïamoun. A long

ray of sunlight suddenly played upon her forehead, as though trying to

replace her absent diadem.

"You see the moment has come; it is daybreak, it is the hour when happy

dreams take flight," said Meïamoun. Then he emptied the fatal vessel at

a draught, and fell as though struck by lightning. Cleopatra bent her

head, and one burning tear--the only one she had ever shed--fell into

her cup to mingle with the molten pearl.

"By Hercules, my fair queen! I made all speed in vain. I see I have come

too late," cried Mark Antony, entering the banquet-hall, "the supper is

over. But what signifies this corpse upon the pavement?"

"Oh, nothing!" returned Cleopatra, with a smile; "only a poison I was

testing with the idea of using it upon myself should Augustus take me

prisoner. My dear Lord, will you not please to take a seat beside me,

and watch those Greek buffoons dance?"

[1] Does not this suggest the lines which DeQuincey so much admired?--

"A wilderness of building, sinking far,

And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth

Far sinking into splendor, without end.

Fabric it seemed of diamond, and of gold,

With alabaster domes and silver spires,

And blazing terrace upon terrace, high

Uplifted. Here serene pavilions bright,

In avenues disposed; their towers begirt

With _battlements that on their restless fronts

Bore stars_."

[2] John Martin, the English painter, whose creations were unparalleled

in breadth and depth of composition. His pictures seem to have made a

powerful impression upon the highly imaginative author of these

Romances. There is something in these descriptions of antique

architecture that suggests the influence of such pictured fantasies as

Martin's "Seventh Plague;" "The Heavenly City;" and perhaps, especially,

the famous "Pandemonium," with its infernal splendor, in Martin's

illustrations to "Paradise Lost."--(Trans.)

[3] Antique castanets.--(Trans.)

CLARIMONDE[1]

Brother, you ask me if I have ever loved. Yes. My story is a strange and

terrible one; and though I am sixty-six years of age, I scarcely dare

even now to disturb the ashes of that memory. To you I can refuse

nothing; but I should not relate such a tale to any less experienced

mind. So strange were the circumstances of my story, that I can scarcely

believe myself to have ever actually been a party to them. For more than

three years I remained the victim of a most singular and diabolical

illusion. Poor country priest though I was, I led every night in a

dream--would to God it had been all a dream!--a most worldly life, a

damning life, a life of Sardanapalus. One single look too freely cast

upon a woman well-nigh caused me to lose my soul; but finally by the

grace of God and the assistance of my patron saint, I succeeded in

casting out the evil spirit that possessed me. My daily life was long

interwoven with a nocturnal life of a totally different character. By

day I was a priest of the Lord, occupied with prayer and sacred things;

by night, from the instant that I closed my eyes I became a young

nobleman, a fine connoisseur in women, dogs, and horses; gambling,

drinking, and blaspheming, and when I awoke at early daybreak, it seemed

to me, on the other hand, that I had been sleeping, and had only dreamed

that I was a priest. Of this somnambulistic life there now remains to me

only the recollection of certain scenes and words which I cannot banish

from my memory; but although I never actually left the walls of my

presbytery, one would think to hear me speak that I were a man who,

weary of all worldly pleasures, had become a religious, seeking to end a

tempestuous life in the service of God, rather than an humble seminarist

who has grown old in this obscure curacy, situated in the depths of the

woods and even isolated from the life of the century.

Yes, I have loved as none in the world ever loved--with an insensate and

furious passion--so violent that I am astonished it did not cause my

heart to burst asunder. Ah, what nights--what nights!

From my earliest childhood I had felt a vocation to the priesthood, so

that all my studies were directed with that idea in view. Up to the age

of twenty-four my life had been only a prolonged novitiate. Having

completed my course of theology I successively received all the minor

orders, and my superiors judged me worthy, despite my youth, to pass the

last awful degree. My ordination was fixed for Easter week.

I had never gone into the world. My world was confined by the walls of

the college and the seminary. I knew in a vague sort of a way that there

was something called Woman, but I never permitted my thoughts to dwell

on such a subject, and I lived in a state of perfect innocence. Twice a

year only I saw my infirm and aged mother, and in those visits were

comprised my sole relations with the outer world.

I regretted nothing; I felt not the least hesitation at taking the last

irrevocable step; I was filled with joy and impatience. Never did a

betrothed lover count the slow hours with more feverish ardor; I slept

only to dream that I was saying mass; I believed there could be nothing

in the world more delightful than to be a priest; I would have refused

to be a king or a poet in preference. My ambition could conceive of no

loftier aim.

I tell you this in order to show you that what happened to me could not

have happened in the natural order of things, and to enable you to

understand that I was the victim of an inexplicable fascination.

At last the great day came. I walked to the church with a step so light

that I fancied myself sustained in air, or that I had wings upon my

shoulders. I believed myself an angel, and wondered at the sombre and

thoughtful faces of my companions, for there were several of us. I had

passed all the night in prayer, and was in a condition well-nigh

bordering on ecstasy. The bishop, a venerable old man, seemed to me God

the Father leaning over his Eternity, and I beheld Heaven through the

vault of the temple.

You well know the details of that ceremony--the benediction, the

communion under both forms, the anointing of the palms of the hands with

the Oil of Catechumens, and then the holy sacrifice offered in concert

with the bishop.

Ah, truly spake Job when he declared that the imprudent man is one who

hath not made a covenant with his eyes! I accidentally lifted my head,

which until then I had kept down, and beheld before me, so close that it

seemed that I could have touched her--although she was actually a

considerable distance from me and on the further side of the sanctuary

railing--a young woman of extraordinary beauty, and attired with royal

magnificence. It seemed as though scales had suddenly fallen from my

eyes. I felt like a blind man who unexpectedly recovers his sight. The

bishop, so radiantly glorious but an instant before, suddenly vanished

away, the tapers paled upon their golden candlesticks like stars in the

dawn, and a vast darkness seemed to fill the whole church. The charming

creature appeared in bright relief against the background of that

darkness, like some angelic revelation. She seemed herself radiant, and

radiating light rather than receiving it.

I lowered my eyelids, firmly resolved not to again open them, that I

might not be influenced by external objects, for distraction had

gradually taken possession of me until I hardly knew what I was doing.

In another minute, nevertheless, I reopened my eyes, for through my

eyelashes I still beheld her, all sparkling with prismatic colors, and

surrounded with such a purple penumbra as one beholds in gazing at the

sun.

Oh, how beautiful she was! The greatest painters, who followed ideal

beauty into heaven itself, and thence brought back to earth the true

portrait of the Madonna, never in their delineations even approached

that wildly beautiful reality which I saw before me. Neither the verses

of the poet nor the palette of the artist could convey any conception

of her. She was rather tall, with a form and bearing of a goddess. Her

hair, of a soft blonde hue, was parted in the midst and flowed back over

her temples in two rivers of rippling gold; she seemed a diademed queen.

Her forehead, bluish-white in its transparency, extended its calm

breadth above the arches of her eyebrows, which by a strange singularity

were almost black, and admirably relieved the effect of sea-green eyes

of unsustainable vivacity and brilliancy. What eyes! With a single flash

they could have decided a man's destiny. They had a life, a limpidity,

an ardor, a humid light which I have never seen in human eyes; they shot

forth rays like arrows, which I could distinctly _see_ enter my heart. I

know not if the fire which illumined them came from heaven or from hell,

but assuredly it came from one or the other. That woman was either an

angel or a demon, perhaps both. Assuredly she never sprang from the

flank of Eve, our common mother. Teeth of the most lustrous pearl

gleamed in her ruddy smile, and at every inflection of her lips little

dimples appeared in the satiny rose of her adorable cheeks. There was a

delicacy and pride in the regal outline of her nostrils bespeaking noble

blood. Agate gleams played over the smooth lustrous skin of her

half-bare shoulders, and strings of great blonde pearls--almost equal to

her neck in beauty of color--descended upon her bosom. From time to time

she elevated her head with the undulating grace of a startled serpent or

peacock, thereby imparting a quivering motion to the high lace ruff

which surrounded it like a silver trellis-work.

She wore a robe of orange-red velvet, and from her wide ermine-lined

sleeves there peeped forth patrician hands of infinite delicacy, and so

ideally transparent that, like the fingers of Aurora, they permitted the

light to shine through them.

All these details I can recollect at this moment as plainly as though

they were of yesterday, for notwithstanding I was greatly troubled at

the time, nothing escaped me; the faintest touch of shading, the little

dark speck at the point of the chin, the imperceptible down at the

corners of the lips, the velvety floss upon the brow, the quivering

shadows of the eyelashes upon the cheeks, I could notice everything with

astonishing lucidity of perception.

And gazing I felt opening within me gates that had until then remained

closed; vents long obstructed became all clear, permitting glimpses of

unfamiliar perspectives within; life suddenly made itself visible to me

under a totally novel aspect. I felt as though I had just been born into

a new world and a new order of things. A frightful anguish commenced to

torture my heart as with red-hot pincers. Every successive minute seemed

to me at once but a second and yet a century. Meanwhile the ceremony was

proceeding, and I shortly found myself transported far from that world

of which my newly-born desires were furiously besieging the entrance.

Nevertheless I answered "Yes" when I wished to say "No," though all

within me protested against the violence done to my soul by my tongue.

Some occult power seemed to force the words from my throat against my

will. Thus it is, perhaps, that so many young girls walk to the altar

firmly resolved to refuse in a startling manner the husband imposed

upon them, and that yet not one ever fulfils her intention. Thus it is,

doubtless, that so many poor novices take the veil, though they have

resolved to tear it into shreds at the moment when called upon to utter

the vows. One dares not thus cause so great a scandal to all present,

nor deceive the expectation of so many people. All those eyes, all those

wills seem to weigh down upon you like a cope of lead; and, moreover,

measures have been so well taken, everything has been so thoroughly

arranged beforehand and after a fashion so evidently irrevocable, that

the will yields to the weight of circumstances and utterly breaks down.

As the ceremony proceeded the features of the fair unknown changed their

expression. Her look had at first been one of caressing tenderness; it

changed to an air of disdain and of mortification, as though at not

having been able to make itself understood.

With an effort of will sufficient to have uprooted a mountain, I strove

to cry out that I would not be a priest, but I could not speak; my

tongue seemed nailed to my palate, and I found it impossible to express

my will by the least syllable of negation. Though fully awake, I felt

like one under the influence of a nightmare, who vainly strives to

shriek out the one word upon which life depends.

She seemed conscious of the martyrdom I was undergoing, and, as though

to encourage me, she gave me a look replete with divinest promise. Her

eyes were a poem; their every glance was a song.

She said to me:

"If thou wilt be mine, I shall make thee happier than God Himself in His

paradise. The angels themselves will be jealous of thee. Tear off that

funeral shroud in which thou art about to wrap thyself. I am Beauty, I

am Youth, I am Life. Come to me! Together we shall be Love. Can Jehovah

offer thee aught in exchange? Our lives will flow on like a dream, in

one eternal kiss.

"Fling forth the wine of that chalice, and thou art free. I will conduct

thee to the Unknown Isles. Thou shalt sleep in my bosom upon a bed of

massy gold under a silver pavilion, for I love thee and would take thee

away from thy God, before whom so many noble hearts pour forth floods of

love which never reach even the steps of His throne!"

These words seemed to float to my ears in a rhythm of infinite

sweetness, for her look was actually sonorous, and the utterances of her

eyes were reechoed in the depths of my heart as though living lips had

breathed them into my life. I felt myself willing to renounce God, and

yet my tongue mechanically fulfilled all the formalities of the

ceremony. The fair one gave me another look, so beseeching, so

despairing that keen blades seemed to pierce my heart, and I felt my

bosom transfixed by more swords than those of Our Lady of Sorrows.

All was consummated; I had become a priest.

Never was deeper anguish painted on human face than upon hers. The

maiden who beholds her affianced lover suddenly fall dead at her side,

the mother bending over the empty cradle of her child, Eve seated at

the threshold of the gate of Paradise, the miser who finds a stone

substituted for his stolen treasure, the poet who accidentally permits

the only manuscript of his finest work to fall into the fire, could not

wear a look so despairing, so inconsolable. All the blood had abandoned

her charming face, leaving it whiter than marble; her beautiful arms

hung lifelessly on either side of her body as though their muscles had

suddenly relaxed, and she sought the support of a pillar, for her

yielding limbs almost betrayed her. As for myself, I staggered toward

the door of the church, livid as death, my forehead bathed with a sweat

bloodier than that of Calvary; I felt as though I were being strangled;

the vault seemed to have flattened down upon my shoulders, and it seemed

to me that my head alone sustained the whole weight of the dome.

As I was about to cross the threshold a hand suddenly caught mine--a

woman's hand! I had never till then touched the hand of any woman. It

was cold as a serpent's skin, and yet its impress remained upon my

wrist, burnt there as though branded by a glowing iron. It was she.

"Unhappy man! Unhappy man! What hast thou done?" she exclaimed in a low

voice, and immediately disappeared in the crowd.

The aged bishop passed by. He cast a severe and scrutinizing look upon

me. My face presented the wildest aspect imaginable; I blushed and

turned pale alternately; dazzling lights flashed before my eyes. A

companion took pity on me. He seized my arm and led me out. I could not

possibly have found my way back to the seminary unassisted. At the

corner of a street, while the young priest's attention was momentarily

turned in another direction, a negro page, fantastically garbed,

approached me, and without pausing on his way slipped into my hand a

little pocket-book with gold-embroidered corners, at the same time

giving me a sign to hide it. I concealed it in my sleeve, and there kept

it until I found myself alone in my cell. Then I opened the clasp. There

were only two leaves within, bearing the words, "Clarimonde. At the

Concini Palace." So little acquainted was I at that time with the

things of this world that I had never heard of Clarimonde, celebrated as

she was, and I had no idea as to where the Concini Palace was situated.

I hazarded a thousand conjectures, each more extravagant than the last;

but, in truth, I cared little whether she were a great lady or a

courtesan, so that I could but see her once more.

My love, although the growth of a single hour, had taken imperishable

root. I did not even dream of attempting to tear it up, so fully was I

convinced such a thing would be impossible. That woman had completely

taken possession of me. One look from her had sufficed to change my very

nature. She had breathed her will into my life, and I no longer lived in

myself, but in her and for her. I gave myself up to a thousand

extravagancies. I kissed the place upon my hand which she had touched,

and I repeated her name over and over again for hours in succession. I

only needed to close my eyes in order to see her distinctly as though

she were actually present; and I reiterated to myself the words she had

uttered in my ear at the church porch: "Unhappy man! Unhappy man! What

hast thou done?" I comprehended at last the full horror of my situation,

and the funereal and awful restraints of the state into which I had just

entered became clearly revealed to me. To be a priest!--that is, to be

chaste, to never love, to observe no distinction of sex or age, to turn

from the sight of all beauty, to put out one's own eyes, to hide forever

crouching in the chill shadows of some church or cloister, to visit none

but the dying, to watch by unknown corpses, and ever bear about with one

the black soutane as a garb of mourning for one's self, so that your

very dress might serve as a pall for your coffin.

And I felt life rising within me like a subterranean lake, expanding and

overflowing; my blood leaped fiercely through my arteries; my

long-restrained youth suddenly burst into active being, like the aloe

which blooms but once in a hundred years, and then bursts into blossom

with a clap of thunder.

What could I do in order to see Clarimonde once more? I had no pretext

to offer for desiring to leave the seminary, not knowing any person in

the city. I would not even be able to remain there but a short time, and

was only waiting my assignment to the curacy which I must thereafter

occupy. I tried to remove the bars of the window; but it was at a

fearful height from the ground, and I found that as I had no ladder it

would be useless to think of escaping thus. And, furthermore, I could

descend thence only by night in any event, and afterward how should I be

able to find my way through the inextricable labyrinth of streets? All

these difficulties, which to many would have appeared altogether

insignificant, were gigantic to me, a poor seminarist who had fallen in

love only the day before for the first time, without experience, without

money, without attire.

"Ah!" cried I to myself in my blindness, "were I not a priest I could

have seen her every day; I might have been her lover, her spouse.

Instead of being wrapped in this dismal shroud of mine I would have had

garments of silk and velvet, golden chains, a sword, and fair plumes

like other handsome young cavaliers. My hair, instead of being

dishonored by the tonsure, would flow down upon my neck in waving curls;

I would have a fine waxed mustache; I would be a gallant." But one hour

passed before an altar, a few hastily articulated words, had forever cut

me off from the number of the living, and I had myself sealed down the

stone of my own tomb; I had with my own hand bolted the gate of my

prison! I went to the window. The sky was beautifully blue; the trees

had donned their spring robes; nature seemed to be making parade of an

ironical joy. The _Place_ was filled with people, some going, others

coming; young beaux and young beauties were sauntering in couples toward

the groves and gardens; merry youths passed by, cheerily trolling

refrains of drinking songs--it was all a picture of vivacity, life,

animation, gayety, which formed a bitter contrast with my mourning and

my solitude. On the steps of the gate sat a young mother playing with

her child. She kissed its little rosy mouth still impearled with drops

of milk, and performed, in order to amuse it, a thousand divine little

puerilities such as only mothers know how to invent. The father standing

at a little distance smiled gently upon the charming group, and with

folded arms seemed to hug his joy to his heart. I could not endure that

spectacle. I closed the window with violence, and flung myself on my

bed, my heart filled with frightful hate and jealousy, and gnawed my

fingers and my bedcovers like a tiger that has passed ten days without

food.

I know not how long I remained in this condition, but at last, while

writhing on the bed in a fit of spasmodic fury, I suddenly perceived the

Abbé Sérapion, who was standing erect in the centre of the room,

watching me attentively. Filled with shame of myself, I let my head fall

upon my breast and covered my face with my hands.

"Romuald, my friend, something very extraordinary is transpiring within

you," observed Sérapion, after a few moments' silence; "your conduct is

altogether inexplicable. You--always so quiet, so pious, so gentle--you

to rage in your cell like a wild beast! Take heed, brother--do not

listen to the suggestions of the devil. The Evil Spirit, furious that

you have consecrated yourself forever to the Lord, is prowling around

you like a ravening wolf and making a last effort to obtain possession

of you. Instead of allowing yourself to be conquered, my dear Romuald,

make to yourself a cuirass of prayers, a buckler of mortifications, and

combat the enemy like a valiant man; you will then assuredly overcome

him. Virtue must be proved by temptation, and gold comes forth purer

from the hands of the assayer. Fear not. Never allow yourself to become

discouraged. The most watchful and steadfast souls are at moments liable

to such temptation. Pray, fast, meditate, and the Evil Spirit will

depart from you."

The words of the Abbé Sérapion restored me to myself, and I became a

little more calm. "I came," he continued, "to tell you that you have

been appointed to the curacy of C----. The priest who had charge of it

has just died, and Monseigneur the Bishop has ordered me to have you

installed there at once. Be ready, therefore, to start to-morrow." I

responded with an inclination of the head, and the Abbé retired. I

opened my missal and commenced reading some prayers, but the letters

became confused and blurred under my eyes, the thread of the ideas

entangled itself hopelessly in my brain, and the volume at last fell

from my hands without my being aware of it.

To leave to-morrow without having been able to see her again, to add yet

another barrier to the many already interposed between us, to lose

forever all hope of being able to meet her, except, indeed, through a

miracle! Even to write her, alas! would be impossible, for by whom could

I despatch my letter? With my sacred character of priest, to whom could

I dare unbosom myself, in whom could I confide? I became a prey to the

bitterest anxiety.

Then suddenly recurred to me the words of the Abbé Sérapion regarding

the artifices of the devil; and the strange character of the adventure,

the supernatural beauty of Clarimonde, the phosphoric light of her eyes,

the burning imprint of her hand, the agony into which she had thrown me,

the sudden change wrought within me when all my piety vanished in a

single instant--these and other things clearly testified to the work of

the Evil One, and perhaps that satiny hand was but the glove which

concealed his claws. Filled with terror at these fancies, I again picked

up the missal which had slipped from my knees and fallen upon the floor,

and once more gave myself up to prayer. Next morning Sérapion came to

take me away. Two mules freighted with our miserable valises awaited us

at the gate. He mounted one, and I the other as well as I knew how.

As we passed along the streets of the city, I gazed attentively at all

the windows and balconies in the hope of seeing Clarimonde, but it was

yet early in the morning, and the city had hardly opened its eyes. Mine

sought to penetrate the blinds and window-curtains of all the palaces

before which we were passing. Sérapion doubtless attributed this

curiosity to my admiration of the architecture, for he slackened the

pace of his animal in order to give me time to look around me. At last

we passed the city gates and commenced to mount the hill beyond. When

we arrived at its summit I turned to take a last look at the place where

Clarimonde dwelt. The shadow of a great cloud hung over all the city;

the contrasting colors of its blue and red roofs were lost in the

uniform half-tint, through which here and there floated upward, like

white flakes of foam, the smoke of freshly kindled fires. By a singular

optical effect one edifice, which surpassed in height all the

neighboring buildings that were still dimly veiled by the vapors,

towered up, fair and lustrous with the gilding of a solitary beam of

sunlight--although actually more than a league away it seemed quite

near. The smallest details of its architecture were plainly

distinguishable--the turrets, the platforms, the window-casements, and

even the swallow-tailed weather vanes.

"What is that palace I see over there, all lighted up by the sun?" I

asked Sérapion. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and having looked in

the direction indicated, replied: "It is the ancient palace which the

Prince Concini has given to the courtesan Clarimonde. Awful things are

done there!"

At that instant, I know not yet whether it was a reality or an illusion,

I fancied I saw gliding along the terrace a shapely white figure, which

gleamed for a moment in passing and as quickly vanished. It was

Clarimonde.

Oh, did she know that at that very hour, all feverish and restless--from

the height of the rugged road which separated me from her and which,

alas! I could never more descend--I was directing my eyes upon the

palace where she dwelt, and which a mocking beam of sunlight seemed to

bring nigh to me, as though inviting me to enter therein as its lord?

Undoubtedly she must have known it, for her soul was too sympathetically

united with mine not to have felt its least emotional thrill, and that

subtle sympathy it must have been which prompted her to climb--although

clad only in her night-dress--to the summit of the terrace, amid the icy

dews of the morning.

The shadow gained the palace, and the scene became to the eye only a

motionless ocean of roofs and gables, amid which one mountainous

undulation was distinctly visible. Sérapion urged his mule forward, my

own at once followed at the same gait, and a sharp angle in the road at

last hid the city of S---- forever from my eyes, as I was destined never

to return thither. At the close of a weary three-days' journey through

dismal country fields, we caught sight of the cock upon the steeple of

the church which I was to take charge of, peeping above the trees, and

after having followed some winding roads fringed with thatched cottages

and little gardens, we found ourselves in front of the façade, which

certainly possessed few features of magnificence. A porch ornamented

with some mouldings, and two or three pillars rudely hewn from

sandstone; a tiled roof with counterforts of the same sandstone as the

pillars, that was all. To the left lay the cemetery, overgrown with high

weeds, and having a great iron cross rising up in its centre; to the

right stood the presbytery, under the shadow of the church. It was a

house of the most extreme simplicity and frigid cleanliness. We entered

the enclosure. A few chickens were picking up some oats scattered upon

the ground; accustomed, seemingly, to the black habit of ecclesiastics,

they showed no fear of our presence and scarcely troubled themselves to

get out of our way. A hoarse, wheezy barking fell upon our ears, and we

saw an aged dog running toward us.

It was my predecessor's dog. He had dull bleared eyes, grizzled hair,

and every mark of the greatest age to which a dog can possibly attain. I

patted him gently, and he proceeded at once to march along beside me

with an air of satisfaction unspeakable. A very old woman, who had been

the housekeeper of the former curé, also came to meet us, and after

having invited me into a little back parlor, asked whether I intended to

retain her. I replied that I would take care of her, and the dog, and

the chickens, and all the furniture her master had bequeathed her at his

death. At this she became fairly transported with joy, and the Abbé

Sérapion at once paid her the price which she asked for her little

property.

As soon as my installation was over, the Abbé Sérapion returned to the

seminary. I was, therefore, left alone, with no one but myself to look

to for aid or counsel. The thought of Clarimonde again began to haunt

me, and in spite of all my endeavors to banish it, I always found it

present in my meditations. One evening, while promenading in my little

garden along the walks bordered with box-plants, I fancied that I saw

through the elm-trees the figure of a woman, who followed my every

movement, and that I beheld two sea-green eyes gleaming through the

foliage; but it was only an illusion, and on going round to the other

side of the garden, I could find nothing except a footprint on the

sanded walk--a footprint so small that it seemed to have been made by

the foot of a child. The garden was enclosed by very high walls. I

searched every nook and corner of it, but could discover no one there. I

have never succeeded in fully accounting for this circumstance, which,

after all, was nothing compared with the strange things which happened

to me afterward.

For a whole year I lived thus, filling all the duties of my calling with

the most scrupulous exactitude, praying and fasting, exhorting and

lending ghostly aid to the sick, and bestowing alms even to the extent

of frequently depriving myself of the very necessaries of life. But I

felt a great aridness within me, and the sources of grace seemed closed

against me. I never found that happiness which should spring from the

fulfilment of a holy mission; my thoughts were far away, and the words

of Clarimonde were ever upon my lips like an involuntary refrain. Oh,

brother, meditate well on this! Through having but once lifted my eyes

to look upon a woman, through one fault apparently so venial, I have for

years remained a victim to the most miserable agonies, and the happiness

of my life has been destroyed forever.

I will not longer dwell upon those defeats, or on those inward victories

invariably followed by yet more terrible falls, but will at once proceed

to the facts of my story. One night my door-bell was long and violently

rung. The aged housekeeper arose and opened to the stranger, and the

figure of a man, whose complexion was deeply bronzed, and who was

richly clad in a foreign costume, with a poniard at his girdle, appeared

under the rays of Barbara's lantern. Her first impulse was one of

terror, but the stranger reassured her, and stated that he desired to

see me at once on matters relating to my holy calling. Barbara invited

him upstairs, where I was on the point of retiring. The stranger told me

that his mistress, a very noble lady, was lying at the point of death,

and desired to see a priest. I replied that I was prepared to follow

him, took with me the sacred articles necessary for extreme unction, and

descended in all haste. Two horses black as the night itself stood

without the gate, pawing the ground with impatience, and veiling their

chests with long streams of smoky vapor exhaled from their nostrils. He

held the stirrup and aided me to mount upon one; then, merely laying his

hand upon the pummel of the saddle, he vaulted on the other, pressed the

animal's sides with his knees, and loosened rein. The horse bounded

forward with the velocity of an arrow. Mine, of which the stranger held

the bridle, also started off at a swift gallop, keeping up with his

companion. We devoured the road. The ground flowed backward beneath us

in a long streaked line of pale gray, and the black silhouettes of the

trees seemed fleeing by us on either side like an army in rout. We

passed through a forest so profoundly gloomy that I felt my flesh creep

in the chill darkness with superstitious fear. The showers of bright

sparks which flew from the stony road under the ironshod feet of our

horses, remained glowing in our wake like a fiery trail; and had anyone

at that hour of the night beheld us both--my guide and myself--he must

have taken us for two spectres riding upon nightmares. Witch-fires ever

and anon flitted across the road before us, and the night-birds shrieked

fearsomely in the depth of the woods beyond, where we beheld at

intervals glow the phosphorescent eyes of wildcats. The manes of the

horses became more and more dishevelled, the sweat streamed over their

flanks, and their breath came through their nostrils hard and fast. But

when he found them slacking pace, the guide reanimated them by uttering

a strange, guttural, unearthly cry, and the gallop recommenced with

fury. At last the whirlwind race ceased; a huge black mass pierced

through with many bright points of light suddenly rose before us, the

hoofs of our horses echoed louder upon a strong wooden draw-bridge, and

we rode under a great vaulted archway which darkly yawned between two

enormous towers. Some great excitement evidently reigned in the castle.

Servants with torches were crossing the courtyard in every direction,

and above lights were ascending and descending from landing to landing.

I obtained a confused glimpse of vast masses of architecture--columns,

arcades, flights of steps, stairways--a royal voluptuousness and elfin

magnificence of construction worthy of fairyland. A negro page--the same

who had before brought me the tablet from Clarimonde, and whom I

instantly recognized--approached to aid me in dismounting, and the

major-domo, attired in black velvet with a gold chain about his neck,

advanced to meet me, supporting himself upon an ivory cane. Large tears

were falling from his eyes and streaming over his cheeks and white

beard. "Too late!" he cried, sorrowfully shaking his venerable head.

"Too late, sir priest! But if you have not been able to save the soul,

come at least to watch by the poor body."

He took my arm and conducted me to the death chamber. I wept not less

bitterly than he, for I had learned that the dead one was none other

than that Clarimonde whom I had so deeply and so wildly loved. A

_prie-dieu_ stood at the foot of the bed; a bluish flame flickering in a

bronze patera filled all the room with a wan, deceptive light, here and

there bringing out in the darkness at intervals some projection of

furniture or cornice. In a chiselled urn upon the table there was a

faded white rose, whose leaves--excepting one that still held--had all

fallen, like odorous tears, to the foot of the vase. A broken black

mask, a fan, and disguises of every variety, which were lying on the

arm-chairs, bore witness that death had entered suddenly and unannounced

into that sumptuous dwelling. Without daring to cast my eyes upon the

bed, I knelt down and commenced to repeat the Psalms for the Dead, with

exceeding fervor, thanking God that he had placed the tomb between me

and the memory of this woman, so that I might thereafter be able to

utter her name in my prayers as a name forever sanctified by death. But

my fervor gradually weakened, and I fell insensibly into a reverie. That

chamber bore no semblance to a chamber of death. In lieu of the fœtid

and cadaverous odors which I had been accustomed to breathe during such

funereal vigils, a languorous vapor of Oriental perfume--I know not what

amorous odor of woman--softly floated through the tepid air. That pale

light seemed rather a twilight gloom contrived for voluptuous pleasure,

than a substitute for the yellow-flickering watch-tapers which shine by

the side of corpses. I thought upon the strange destiny which enabled me

to meet Clarimonde again at the very moment when she was lost to me

forever, and a sigh of regretful anguish escaped from my breast. Then it

seemed to me that some one behind me had also sighed, and I turned round

to look. It was only an echo. But in that moment my eyes fell upon the

bed of death which they had till then avoided. The red damask curtains,

decorated with large flowers worked in embroidery, and looped up with

gold bullion, permitted me to behold the fair dead, lying at full

length, with hands joined upon her bosom. She was covered with a linen

wrapping of dazzling whiteness, which formed a strong contrast with the

gloomy purple of the hangings, and was of so fine a texture that it

concealed nothing of her body's charming form, and allowed the eye to

follow those beautiful outlines--undulating like the neck of a

swan--which even death had not robbed of their supple grace. She seemed

an alabaster statue executed by some skilful sculptor to place upon the

tomb of a queen, or rather, perhaps, like a slumbering maiden over whom

the silent snow had woven a spotless veil.

I could no longer maintain my constrained attitude of prayer. The air of

the alcove intoxicated me, that febrile perfume of half-faded roses

penetrated my very brain, and I commenced to pace restlessly up and

down the chamber, pausing at each turn before the bier to contemplate

the graceful corpse lying beneath the transparency of its shroud. Wild

fancies came thronging to my brain. I thought to myself that she might

not, perhaps, be really dead; that she might only have feigned death for

the purpose of bringing me to her castle, and then declaring her love.

At one time I even thought I saw her foot move under the whiteness of

the coverings, and slightly disarrange the long, straight folds of the

winding sheet.

And then I asked myself: "Is this indeed Clarimonde? What proof have I

that it is she? Might not that black page have passed into the service

of some other lady? Surely, I must be going mad to torture and afflict

myself thus!" But my heart answered with a fierce throbbing: "It is she;

it is she indeed!" I approached the bed again, and fixed my eyes with

redoubled attention upon the object of my incertitude. Ah, must I

confess it? That exquisite perfection of bodily form, although purified

and made sacred by the shadow of death, affected me more voluptuously

than it should have done, and that repose so closely resembled slumber

that one might well have mistaken it for such. I forgot that I had come

there to perform a funeral ceremony; I fancied myself a young bridegroom

entering the chamber of the bride, who all modestly hides her fair face,

and through coyness seeks to keep herself wholly veiled. Heartbroken

with grief, yet wild with hope, shuddering at once with fear and

pleasure, I bent over her and grasped the corner of the sheet. I lifted

it back, holding my breath all the while through fear of waking her. My

arteries throbbed with such violence that I felt them hiss through my

temples, and the sweat poured from my forehead in streams, as though I

had lifted a mighty slab of marble. There, indeed, lay Clarimonde, even

as I had seen her at the church on the day of my ordination. She was not

less charming than then. With her, death seemed but a last coquetry. The

pallor of her cheeks, the less brilliant carnation of her lips, her long

eyelashes lowered and relieving their dark fringe against that white

skin, lent her an unspeakably seductive aspect of melancholy chastity

and mental suffering; her long loose hair, still intertwined with some

little blue flowers, made a shining pillow for her head, and veiled the

nudity of her shoulders with its thick ringlets; her beautiful hands,

purer, more diaphanous than the Host, were crossed on her bosom in an

attitude of pious rest and silent prayer, which served to counteract all

that might have proven otherwise too alluring--even after death--in the

exquisite roundness and ivory polish of her bare arms from which the

pearl bracelets had not yet been removed. I remained long in mute

contemplation, and the more I gazed, the less could I persuade myself

that life had really abandoned that beautiful body forever. I do not

know whether it was an illusion or a reflection of the lamplight, but it

seemed to me that the blood was again commencing to circulate under that

lifeless pallor, although she remained all motionless. I laid my hand

lightly on her arm; it was cold, but not colder than her hand on the day

when it touched mine at the portals of the church. I resumed my

position, bending my face above her, and bathing her cheeks with the

warm dew of my tears. Ah, what bitter feelings of despair and

helplessness, what agonies unutterable did I endure in that long watch!

Vainly did I wish that I could have gathered all my life into one mass

that I might give it all to her, and breathe into her chill remains the

flame which devoured me. The night advanced, and feeling the moment of

eternal separation approach, I could not deny myself the last sad sweet

pleasure of imprinting a kiss upon the dead lips of her who had been my

only love.... Oh, miracle! A faint breath mingled itself with my breath,

and the mouth of Clarimonde responded to the passionate pressure of

mine. Her eyes unclosed, and lighted up with something of their former

brilliancy; she uttered a long sigh, and uncrossing her arms, passed

them around my neck with a look of ineffable delight. "Ah, it is thou,

Romuald!" she murmured in a voice languishingly sweet as the last

vibrations of a harp. "What ailed thee, dearest? I waited so long for

thee that I am dead; but we are now betrothed; I can see thee and visit

thee. Adieu, Romuald, adieu! I love thee. That is all I wished to tell

thee, and I give thee back the life which thy kiss for a moment

recalled. We shall soon meet again."

Her head fell back, but her arms yet encircled me, as though to retain

me still. A furious whirlwind suddenly burst in the window, and entered

the chamber. The last remaining leaf of the white rose for a moment

palpitated at the extremity of the stalk like a butterfly's wing, then

it detached itself and flew forth through the open casement, bearing

with it the soul of Clarimonde. The lamp was extinguished, and I fell

insensible upon the bosom of the beautiful dead.

When I came to myself again I was lying on the bed in my little room at

the presbytery, and the old dog of the former curé was licking my hand

which had been hanging down outside of the covers. Barbara, all

trembling with age and anxiety, was busying herself about the room,

opening and shutting drawers, and emptying powders into glasses. On

seeing me open my eyes, the old woman uttered a cry of joy, the dog

yelped and wagged his tail, but I was still so weak that I could not

speak a single word or make the slightest motion. Afterward I learned

that I had lain thus for three days, giving no evidence of life beyond

the faintest respiration. Those three days do not reckon in my life, nor

could I ever imagine whither my spirit had departed during those three

days; I have no recollection of aught relating to them. Barbara told me

that the same coppery-complexioned man who came to seek me on the night

of my departure from the presbytery, had brought me back the next

morning in a close litter, and departed immediately afterward. When I

became able to collect my scattered thoughts, I reviewed within my mind

all the circumstances of that fateful night. At first I thought I had

been the victim of some magical illusion, but ere long the recollection

of other circumstances, real and palpable in themselves, came to forbid

that supposition. I could not believe that I had been dreaming, since

Barbara as well as myself had seen the strange man with his two black

horses, and described with exactness every detail of his figure and

apparel. Nevertheless it appeared that none knew of any castle in the

neighborhood answering to the description of that in which I had again

found Clarimonde.

One morning I found the Abbé Sérapion in my room. Barbara had advised

him that I was ill, and he had come with all speed to see me. Although

this haste on his part testified to an affectionate interest in me, yet

his visit did not cause me the pleasure which it should have done. The

Abbé Sérapion had something penetrating and inquisitorial in his gaze

which made me feel very ill at ease. His presence filled me with

embarrassment and a sense of guilt. At the first glance he divined my

interior trouble, and I hated him for his clairvoyance.

While he inquired after my health in hypocritically honeyed accents, he

constantly kept his two great _yellow_ lion-eyes fixed upon me, and

plunged his look into my soul like a sounding lead. Then he asked me how

I directed my parish, if I was happy in it, how I passed the leisure

hours allowed me in the intervals of pastoral duty, whether I had become

acquainted with many of the inhabitants of the place, what was my

favorite reading, and a thousand other such questions. I answered these

inquiries as briefly as possible, and he, without ever waiting for my

answers, passed rapidly from one subject of query to another. That

conversation had evidently no connection with what he actually wished to

say. At last, without any premonition, but as though repeating a piece

of news which he had recalled on the instant, and feared might otherwise

be forgotten subsequently, he suddenly said, in a clear vibrant voice,

which rang in my ears like the trumpets of the Last Judgment:

"The great courtesan Clarimonde died a few days ago, at the close of an

orgie which lasted eight days and eight nights. It was something

infernally splendid. The abominations of the banquets of Belshazzar and

Cleopatra were reënacted there. Good God, what age are we living in? The

guests were served by swarthy slaves who spoke an unknown tongue, and

who seemed to me to be veritable demons. The livery of the very least

among them would have served for the gala-dress of an emperor. There

have always been very strange stories told of this Clarimonde, and all

her lovers came to a violent or miserable end. They used to say that she

was a ghoul, a female vampire; but I believe she was none other than

Beelzebub himself."

He ceased to speak and commenced to regard me more attentively than

ever, as though to observe the effect of his words on me. I could not

refrain from starting when I heard him utter the name of Clarimonde, and

this news of her death, in addition to the pain it caused me by reason

of its coincidence with the nocturnal scenes I had witnessed, filled me

with an agony and terror which my face betrayed, despite my utmost

endeavors to appear composed. Sérapion fixed an anxious and severe look

upon me, and then observed: "My son, I must warn you that you are

standing with foot raised upon the brink of an abyss; take heed lest you

fall therein. Satan's claws are long, and tombs are not always true to

their trust. The tombstone of Clarimonde should be sealed down with a

triple seal, for, if report be true, it is not the first time she has

died. May God watch over you, Romuald!"

And with these words the Abbé walked slowly to the door. I did not see

him again at that time, for he left for S---- almost immediately.

I became completely restored to health and resumed my accustomed duties.

The memory of Clarimonde and the words of the old Abbé were constantly

in my mind; nevertheless no extraordinary event had occurred to verify

the funereal predictions of Sérapion, and I had commenced to believe

that his fears and my own terrors were over-exaggerated, when one night

I had a strange dream. I had hardly fallen asleep when I heard my

bed-curtains drawn apart, as their rings slided back upon the curtain

rod with a sharp sound. I rose up quickly upon my elbow, and beheld the

shadow of a woman standing erect before me. I recognized Clarimonde

immediately. She bore in her hand a little lamp, shaped like those which

are placed in tombs, and its light lent her fingers a rosy transparency,

which extended itself by lessening degrees even to the opaque and milky

whiteness of her bare arm. Her only garment was the linen winding-sheet

which had shrouded her when lying upon the bed of death. She sought to

gather its folds over her bosom as though ashamed of being so scantily

clad, but her little hand was not equal to the task. She was so white

that the color of the drapery blended with that of her flesh under the

pallid rays of the lamp. Enveloped with this subtle tissue which

betrayed all the contour of her body, she seemed rather the marble

statue of some fair antique bather than a woman endowed with life. But

dead or living, statue or woman, shadow or body, her beauty was still

the same, only that the green light of her eyes was less brilliant, and

her mouth, once so warmly crimson, was only tinted with a faint tender

rosiness, like that of her cheeks. The little blue flowers which I had

noticed entwined in her hair were withered and dry, and had lost nearly

all their leaves, but this did not prevent her from being charming--so

charming that notwithstanding the strange character of the adventure,

and the unexplainable manner in which she had entered my room, I felt

not even for a moment the least fear.

She placed the lamp on the table and seated herself at the foot of my

bed; then bending toward me, she said, in that voice at once silvery

clear and yet velvety in its sweet softness, such as I never heard from

any lips save hers:

"I have kept thee long in waiting, dear Romuald, and it must have seemed

to thee that I had forgotten thee. But I come from afar off, very far

off, and from a land whence no other has ever yet returned. There is

neither sun nor moon in that land whence I come: all is but space and

shadow; there is neither road nor pathway: no earth for the foot, no air

for the wing; and nevertheless behold me here, for Love is stronger than

Death and must conquer him in the end. Oh what sad faces and fearful

things I have seen on my way hither! What difficulty my soul, returned

to earth through the power of will alone, has had in finding its body

and reinstating itself therein! What terrible efforts I had to make ere

I could lift the ponderous slab with which they had covered me! See,

the palms of my poor hands are all bruised! Kiss them, sweet love, that

they may be healed!" She laid the cold palms of her hands upon my mouth,

one after the other. I kissed them, indeed, many times, and she the

while watched me with a smile of ineffable affection.

I confess to my shame that I had entirely forgotten the advice of the

Abbé Sérapion and the sacred office wherewith I had been invested. I had

fallen without resistance, and at the first assault. I had not even made

the least effort to repel the tempter. The fresh coolness of

Clarimonde's skin penetrated my own, and I felt voluptuous tremors pass

over my whole body. Poor child! in spite of all I saw afterward, I can

hardly yet believe she was a demon; at least she had no appearance of

being such, and never did Satan so skilfully conceal his claws and

horns. She had drawn her feet up beneath her, and squatted down on the

edge of the couch in an attitude full of negligent coquetry. From time

to time she passed her little hand through my hair and twisted it into

curls, as though trying how a new style of wearing it would become my

face. _I_ abandoned myself to her hands with the most guilty pleasure,

while she accompanied her gentle play with the prettiest prattle. The

most remarkable fact was that I felt no astonishment whatever at so

extraordinary an adventure, and as in dreams one finds no difficulty in

accepting the most fantastic events as simple facts, so all these

circumstances seemed to me perfectly natural in themselves.

"I loved thee long ere I saw thee, dear Romuald, and sought thee

everywhere. Thou wast my dream, and I first saw thee in the church at

the fatal moment. I said at once, 'It is he!' I gave thee a look into

which I threw all the love I ever had, all the love I now have, all the

love I shall ever have for thee--a look that would have damned a

cardinal or brought a king to his knees at my feet in view of all his

court. Thou remainedst unmoved, preferring thy God to me!

"Ah, how jealous I am of that God whom thou didst love and still lovest

more than me!

"Woe is me, unhappy one that I am! I can never have thy heart all to

myself, I whom thou didst recall to life with a kiss--dead Clarimonde,

who for thy sake bursts asunder the gates of the tomb, and comes to

consecrate to thee a life which she has resumed only to make thee

happy!"

All her words were accompanied with the most impassioned caresses, which

bewildered my sense and my reason to such an extent, that I did not fear

to utter a frightful blasphemy for the sake of consoling her, and to

declare that I loved her as much as God.

Her eyes rekindled and shone like chrysoprases. "In truth?--in very

truth?--as much as God!" she cried, flinging her beautiful arms around

me. "Since it is so, thou wilt come with me; thou wilt follow me

whithersoever I desire. Thou wilt cast away thy ugly black habit. Thou

shalt be the proudest and most envied of cavaliers; thou shalt be my

lover! To be the acknowledged lover of Clarimonde, who has refused even

a Pope, that will be something to feel proud of! Ah, the fair,

unspeakably happy existence, the beautiful golden life we shall live

together! And when shall we depart, my fair sir?"

"To-morrow! To-morrow!" I cried in my delirium.

"To-morrow, then, so let it be!" she answered. "In the meanwhile I shall

have opportunity to change my toilet, for this is a little too light and

in nowise suited for a voyage. I must also forthwith notify all my

friends who believe me dead, and mourn for me as deeply as they are

capable of doing. The money, the dresses, the carriages--all will be

ready. I shall call for thee at this same hour. Adieu, dear heart!" And

she lightly touched my forehead with her lips. The lamp went out, the

curtains closed again, and all became dark; a leaden, dreamless sleep

fell on me and held me unconscious until the morning following.

I awoke later than usual, and the recollection of this singular

adventure troubled me during the whole day. I finally persuaded myself

that it was a mere vapor of my heated imagination. Nevertheless its

sensations had been so vivid that it was difficult to persuade myself

that they were not real, and it was not without some presentiment of

what was going to happen that I got into bed at last, after having

prayed God to drive far from me all thoughts of evil, and to protect the

chastity of my slumber.

I soon fell into a deep sleep, and my dream was continued. The curtains

again parted, and I beheld Clarimonde, not as on the former occasion,

pale in her pale winding-sheet, with the violets of death upon her

cheeks, but gay, sprightly, jaunty, in a superb travelling dress of

green velvet, trimmed with gold lace, and looped up on either side to

allow a glimpse of satin petticoat. Her blond hair escaped in thick

ringlets from beneath a broad black felt hat, decorated with white

feathers whimsically twisted into various shapes. In one hand she held a

little riding whip terminated by a golden whistle. She tapped me lightly

with it, and exclaimed: "Well, my fine sleeper, is this the way you make

your preparations? I thought I would find you up and dressed. Arise

quickly, we have no time to lose."

I leaped out of bed at once.

"Come, dress yourself, and let us go," she continued, pointing to a

little package she had brought with her. "The horses are becoming

impatient of delay and champing their bits at the door. We ought to have

been by this time at least ten leagues distant from here."

I dressed myself hurriedly, and she handed me the articles of apparel

herself one by one, bursting into laughter from time to time at my

awkwardness, as she explained to me the use of a garment when I had made

a mistake. She hurriedly arranged my hair, and this done, held up before

me a little pocket mirror of Venetian crystal, rimmed with silver

filigree-work, and playfully asked: "How dost find thyself now? Wilt

engage me for thy valet de chambre?"

I was no longer the same person, and I could not even recognize myself.

I resembled my former self no more than a finished statue resembles a

block of stone. My old face seemed but a coarse daub of the one

reflected in the mirror. I was handsome, and my vanity was sensibly

tickled by the metamorphosis. That elegant apparel, that richly

embroidered vest had made of me a totally different personage, and I

marvelled at the power of transformation owned by a few yards of cloth

cut after a certain pattern. The spirit of my costume penetrated my very

skin, and within ten minutes more I had become something of a coxcomb.

In order to feel more at ease in my new attire, I took several turns up

and down the room. Clarimonde watched me with an air of maternal

pleasure, and appeared well satisfied with her work. "Come, enough of

this child's-play! Let us start, Romuald, dear. We have far to go, and

we may not get there in time." She took my hand and led me forth. All

the doors opened before her at a touch, and we passed by the dog without

awaking him.

At the gate we found Margheritone waiting, the same swarthy groom who

had once before been my escort. He held the bridles of three horses, all

black like those which bore us to the castle--one for me, one for him,

one for Clarimonde. Those horses must have been Spanish genets born of

mares fecundated by a zephyr, for they were fleet as the wind itself,

and the moon, which had just risen at our departure to light us on the

way, rolled over the sky like a wheel detached from her own chariot. We

beheld her on the right leaping from tree to tree, and putting herself

out of breath in the effort to keep up with us. Soon we came upon a

level plain where, hard by a clump of trees, a carriage with four

vigorous horses awaited us. We entered it, and the postilions urged

their animals into a mad gallop. I had one arm around Clarimonde's

waist, and one of her hands clasped in mine; her head leaned upon my

shoulder, and I felt her bosom, half bare, lightly pressing against my

arm. I had never known such intense happiness. In that hour I had

forgotten everything, and I no more remembered having ever been a priest

than I remembered what I had been doing in my mother's womb, so great

was the fascination which the evil spirit exerted upon me. From that

night my nature seemed in some sort to have become halved, and there

were two men within me, neither of whom knew the other. At one moment I

believed myself a priest who dreamed nightly that he was a gentleman,

at another that I was a gentleman who dreamed he was a priest. I could

no longer distinguish the dream from the reality, nor could I discover

where the reality began or where ended the dream. The exquisite young

lord and libertine railed at the priest, the priest loathed the

dissolute habits of the young lord. Two spirals entangled and confounded

the one with the other, yet never touching, would afford a fair

representation of this bicephalic life which I lived. Despite the

strange character of my condition, I do not believe that I ever

inclined, even for a moment, to madness. I always retained with extreme

vividness all the perceptions of my two lives. Only there was one absurd

fact which I could not explain to myself--namely, that the consciousness

of the same individuality existed in two men so opposite in character.

It was an anomaly for which I could not account--whether I believed

myself to be the curé of the little village of C----, or _Il Signor

Romualdo_, the titled lover of Clarimonde.

Be that as it may, I lived, at least I believed that I lived, in Venice.

I have never been able to discover rightly how much of illusion and how

much of reality there was in this fantastic adventure. We dwelt in a

great palace on the Canaleio, filled with frescoes and statues, and

containing two Titians in the noblest style of the great master, which

were hung in Clarimonde's chamber. It was a palace well worthy of a

king. We had each our gondola, our _barcarolli_ in family livery, our

music hall, and our special poet. Clarimonde always lived upon a

magnificent scale; there was something of Cleopatra in her nature. As

for me, I had the retinue of a prince's son, and I was regarded with as

much reverential respect as though I had been of the family of one of

the twelve Apostles or the four Evangelists of the Most Serene Republic.

I would not have turned aside to allow even the Doge to pass, and I do

not believe that since Satan fell from heaven, any creature was ever

prouder or more insolent than I. I went to the Ridotto, and played with

a luck which seemed absolutely infernal. I received the best of all

society--the sons of ruined families, women of the theatre, shrewd

knaves, parasites, hectoring swashbucklers. But notwithstanding the

dissipation of such a life, I always remained faithful to Clarimonde. I

loved her wildly. She would have excited satiety itself, and chained

inconstancy. To have Clarimonde was to have twenty mistresses; aye, to

possess all women: so mobile, so varied of aspect, so fresh in new

charms was she all in herself--a very chameleon of a woman, in sooth.

She made you commit with her the infidelity you would have committed

with another, by donning to perfection the character, the attraction,

the style of beauty of the woman who appeared to please you. She

returned my love a hundred-fold, and it was in vain that the young

patricians and even the Ancients of the Council of Ten made her the most

magnificent proposals. A Foscari even went so far as to offer to espouse

her. She rejected all his overtures. Of gold she had enough. She wished

no longer for anything but love--a love youthful, pure, evoked by

herself, and which should be a first and last passion. I would have been

perfectly happy but for a cursed nightmare which recurred every night,

and in which I believed myself to be a poor village curé, practising

mortification and penance for my excesses during the day. Reassured by

my constant association with her, I never thought further of the strange

manner in which I had become acquainted with Clarimonde. But the words

of the Abbé Sérapion concerning her recurred often to my memory, and

never ceased to cause me uneasiness.

For some time the health of Clarimonde had not been so good as usual;

her complexion grew paler day by day. The physicians who were summoned

could not comprehend the nature of her malady and knew not how to treat

it. They all prescribed some insignificant remedies, and never called a

second time. Her paleness, nevertheless, visibly increased, and she

became colder and colder, until she seemed almost as white and dead as

upon that memorable night in the unknown castle. I grieved with anguish

unspeakable to behold her thus slowly perishing; and she, touched by my

agony, smiled upon me sweetly and sadly with the fateful smile of those

who feel that they must die.

One morning I was seated at her bedside, and breakfasting from a little

table placed close at hand, so that I might not be obliged to leave her

for a single instant. In the act of cutting some fruit I accidentally

inflicted rather a deep gash on my finger. The blood immediately gushed

forth in a little purple jet, and a few drops spurted upon Clarimonde.

Her eyes flashed, her face suddenly assumed an expression of savage and

ferocious joy such as I had never before observed in her. She leaped out

of her bed with animal agility--the agility, as it were, of an ape or a

cat--and sprang upon my wound, which she commenced to suck with an air

of unutterable pleasure. She swallowed the blood in little mouthfuls,

slowly and carefully, like a connoisseur tasting a wine from Xeres or

Syracuse. Gradually her eyelids half closed, and the pupils of her green

eyes became oblong instead of round. From time to time she paused in

order to kiss my hand, then she would recommence to press her lips to

the lips of the wound in order to coax forth a few more ruddy drops.

When she found that the blood would no longer come, she arose with eyes

liquid and brilliant, rosier than a May dawn; her face full and fresh,

her hand warm and moist--in fine, more beautiful than ever, and in the

most perfect health.

"I shall not die! I shall not die!" she cried, clinging to my neck, half

mad with joy. "I can love thee yet for a long time. My life is thine,

and all that is of me comes from thee. A few drops of thy rich and noble

blood, more precious and more potent than all the elixirs of the earth,

have given me back life."

This scene long haunted my memory, and inspired me with strange doubts

in regard to Clarimonde; and the same evening, when slumber had

transported me to my presbytery, I beheld the Abbé Sérapion, graver and

more anxious of aspect than ever. He gazed attentively at me, and

sorrowfully exclaimed: "Not content with losing your soul, you now

desire also to lose your body. Wretched young man, into how terrible a

plight have you fallen!" The tone in which he uttered these words

powerfully affected me, but in spite of its vividness even that

impression was soon dissipated, and a thousand other cares erased it

from my mind. At last one evening, while looking into a mirror whose

traitorous position she had not taken into account, I saw Clarimonde in

the act of emptying a powder into the cup of spiced wine which she had

long been in the habit of preparing after our repasts. I took the cup,

feigned to carry it to my lips, and then placed it on the nearest

article of furniture as though intending to finish it at my leisure.

Taking advantage of a moment when the fair one's back was turned, I

threw the contents under the table, after which I retired to my chamber

and went to bed, fully resolved not to sleep, but to watch and discover

what should come of all this mystery. I did not have to wait long.

Clarimonde entered in her night-dress, and having removed her apparel,

crept into bed and lay down beside me. When she felt assured that I was

asleep, she bared my arm, and drawing a gold pin from her hair,

commenced to murmur in a low voice:

"One drop, only one drop! One ruby at the end of my needle.... Since

thou lovest me yet, I must not die!... Ah, poor love! His beautiful

blood, so brightly purple, I must drink it. Sleep, my only treasure!

Sleep, my god, my child! I will do thee no harm; I will only take of thy

life what I must to keep my own from being forever extinguished. But

that I love thee so much, I could well resolve to have other lovers

whose veins I could drain; but since I have known thee all other men

have become hateful to me.... Ah, the beautiful arm! How round it is!

How white it is! How shall I ever dare to prick this pretty blue vein!"

And while thus murmuring to herself she wept, and I felt her tears

raining on my arm as she clasped it with her hands. At last she took the

resolve, slightly punctured me with her pin, and commenced to suck up

the blood which oozed from the place. Although she swallowed only a few

drops, the fear of weakening me soon seized her, and she carefully tied

a little band around my arm, afterward rubbing the wound with an unguent

which immediately cicatrized it.

Further doubts were impossible. The Abbé Sérapion was right.

Notwithstanding this positive knowledge, however, I could not cease to

love Clarimonde, and I would gladly of my own accord have given her all

the blood she required to sustain her factitious life. Moreover, I felt

but little fear of her. The woman seemed to plead with me for the

vampire, and what I had already heard and seen sufficed to reassure me

completely. In those days I had plenteous veins, which would not have

been so easily exhausted as at present; and I would not have thought of

bargaining for my blood, drop by drop. I would rather have opened myself

the veins of my arm and said to her: "Drink, and may my love infiltrate

itself throughout thy body together with my blood!" I carefully avoided

ever making the least reference to the narcotic drink she had prepared

for me, or to the incident of the pin, and we lived in the most perfect

harmony.

Yet my priestly scruples commenced to torment me more than ever, and I

was at a loss to imagine what new penance I could invent in order to

mortify and subdue my flesh. Although these visions were involuntary,

and though I did not actually participate in anything relating to them,

I could not dare to touch the body of Christ with hands so impure and a

mind defiled by such debauches whether real or imaginary. In the effort

to avoid falling under the influence of these wearisome hallucinations,

I strove to prevent myself from being overcome by sleep. I held my

eyelids open with my fingers, and stood for hours together leaning

upright against the wall, fighting sleep with all my might; but the dust

of drowsiness invariably gathered upon my eyes at last, and finding all

resistance useless, I would have to let my arms fall in the extremity of

despairing weariness, and the current of slumber would again bear me

away to the perfidious shores. Sérapion addressed me with the most

vehement exhortations, severely reproaching me for my softness and want

of fervor. Finally, one day when I was more wretched than usual, he said

to me: "There is but one way by which you can obtain relief from this

continual torment, and though it is an extreme measure it must be made

use of; violent diseases require violent remedies. I know where

Clarimonde is buried. It is necessary that we shall disinter her

remains, and that you shall behold in how pitiable a state the object of

your love is. Then you will no longer be tempted to lose your soul for

the sake of an unclean corpse devoured by worms, and ready to crumble

into dust. That will assuredly restore you to yourself." For my part, I

was so tired of this double life that I at once consented, desiring to

ascertain beyond a doubt whether a priest or a gentleman had been the

victim of delusion. I had become fully resolved either to kill one of

the two men within me for the benefit of the other, or else to kill

both, for so terrible an existence could not last long and be endured.

The Abbé Sérapion provided himself with a mattock, a lever, and a

lantern, and at midnight we wended our way to the cemetery of ----, the

location and place of which were perfectly familiar to him. After having

directed the rays of the dark lantern upon the inscriptions of several

tombs, we came at last upon a great slab, half concealed by huge weeds

and devoured by mosses and parasitic plants, whereupon we deciphered the

opening lines of the epitaph:

Here lies Clarimonde

Who was famed in her life-time

As the fairest of women.[2]

"It is here without a doubt," muttered Sérapion, and placing his lantern

on the ground, he forced the point of the lever under the edge of the

stone and commenced to raise it. The stone yielded, and he proceeded to

work with the mattock. Darker and more silent than the night itself, I

stood by and watched him do it, while he, bending over his dismal toil,

streamed with sweat, panted, and his hard-coming breath seemed to have

the harsh tone of a death rattle. It was a weird scene, and had any

persons from without beheld us, they would assuredly have taken us

rather for profane wretches and shroud-stealers than for priests of God.

There was something grim and fierce in Sérapion's zeal which lent him

the air of a demon rather than of an apostle or an angel, and his great

aquiline face, with all its stern features brought out in strong relief

by the lantern-light, had something fearsome in it which enhanced the

unpleasant fancy. I felt an icy sweat come out upon my forehead in huge

beads, and my hair stood up with a hideous fear. Within the depths of my

own heart I felt that the act of the austere Sérapion was an abominable

sacrilege; and I could have prayed that a triangle of fire would issue

from the entrails of the dark clouds, heavily rolling above us, to

reduce him to cinders. The owls which had been nestling in the

cypress-trees, startled by the gleam of the lantern, flew against it

from time to time, striking their dusty wings against its panes, and

uttering plaintive cries of lamentation; wild foxes yelped in the far

darkness, and a thousand sinister noises detached themselves from the

silence. At last Sérapion's mattock struck the coffin itself, making

its planks reëcho with a deep sonorous sound, with that terrible sound

nothingness utters when stricken. He wrenched apart and tore up the lid,

and I beheld Clarimonde, pallid as a figure of marble, with hands

joined; her white winding-sheet made but one fold from her head to her

feet. A little crimson drop sparkled like a speck of dew at one corner

of her colorless mouth. Sérapion, at this spectacle, burst into fury:

"Ah, thou art here, demon! Impure courtesan! Drinker of blood and gold!"

And he flung holy water upon the corpse and the coffin, over which he

traced the sign of the cross with his sprinkler. Poor Clarimonde had no

sooner been touched by the blessed spray than her beautiful body

crumbled into dust, and became only a shapeless and frightful mass of

cinders and half-calcined bones.

"Behold your mistress, my Lord Romuald!" cried the inexorable priest, as

he pointed to these sad remains. "Will you be easily tempted after this

to promenade on the Lido or at Fusina with your beauty?"

I covered my face with my hands, a vast ruin had taken place within me.

I returned to my presbytery, and the noble Lord Romuald, the lover of

Clarimonde, separated himself from the poor priest with whom he had kept

such strange company so long. But once only, the following night, I saw

Clarimonde. She said to me, as she had said the first time at the

portals of the church: "Unhappy man! Unhappy man! What hast thou done?

Wherefore have hearkened to that imbecile priest? Wert thou not happy?

And what harm had I ever done thee that thou shouldst violate my poor

tomb, and lay bare the miseries of my nothingness? All communication

between our souls and our bodies is henceforth forever broken. Adieu!

Thou wilt yet regret me!" She vanished in air as smoke, and I never saw

her more.

Alas! she spoke truly indeed. I have regretted her more than once, and I

regret her still. My soul's peace has been very dearly bought. The love

of God was not too much to replace such a love as hers. And this,

brother, is the story of my youth. Never gaze upon a woman, and walk

abroad only with eyes ever fixed upon the ground; for however chaste and

watchful one may be, the error of a single moment is enough to make one

lose eternity.

[1] "_La Morte Amoureuse._"

[2]

Ici gît Clarimonde

Qui fut de son vivant

La plus belle du monde.

The broken beauty of the lines is unavoidably lost in the translation.

ARRIA MARCELLA

A SOUVENIR OF POMPEII

Three young friends, who had under-taken an Italian tour together last

year, visited the Studii Museum at Naples, where the various antique

objects exhumed from the ashes of Pompeii and Herculaneum have been

collected.

They scattered through the halls, inspecting the mosaics, the bronzes,

the frescoes detached from the walls of the dead city, each following

the promptings of his own particular taste in such matters; and whenever

one of the party encountered something especially curious, he summoned

his comrades with cries of delight, much to the scandal of the taciturn

English visitors, and the staid _bourgeois_ who studiously thumbed

their catalogues.

But the youngest of the three, who had paused before a glass case,

appeared wholly deaf to the exclamations of his comrades, so deeply had

he become absorbed in contemplation. The object that he seemed to be

examining with so much interest was a black mass of coagulated cinders,

bearing a hollow imprint. One might easily have mistaken it for the

fragment of some statue-mould, broken in the casting. The trained eye of

an artist would have readily therein recognized the impression of a

perfect bosom and a flank as faultless in its outlines as a Greek

statue. It is well known, indeed the commonest traveller's guide will

tell you, that this lava, in cooling about the body of a woman,

preserved its charming contours. Thanks to the caprice of the eruption

that destroyed four cities, that noble form, though crumbled to dust

nearly two thousand years ago, has come down to us; the rounded

loveliness of a throat has lived through the centuries in which so many

empires perished without even leaving the traces of their existence;

chance-imprinted upon the volcanic scoriæ, that seal of beauty remains

unobliterated.

Finding that he still remained absorbed in contemplation, Octavian's

friends returned to where he stood; and Max, touching his shoulder,

caused him to start like one surprised in a secret. Evidently Octavian

had not been aware of the approach of Max or Fabio.

"Come, Octavian," exclaimed Max, "do not stay lingering whole hours

before every cabinet, else we shall get late for the train and miss

seeing Pompeii to-day."

"What is our comrade looking at?" asked Fabio, drawing near. "Ah, the

imprint found in the house of Arrius Diomedes!" And he turned a

peculiar, quick glance upon Octavian.

Octavian slightly blushed, took Max's arm, and the visit terminated

without further incident. On leaving the Studii Museum, the three

friends entered a _corricolo,_ and were driven to the railway station.

The _corricolo_, with its great red wheels, its tracket seat studded

with brass nails, and its thin, spirited horse harnessed like a Spanish

mule, and galloping at full speed over the great slabs of lava pavement,

is too familiar to need description here, especially as we are not

recording impressions of a trip to Naples, but the simple narrative of

an adventure which, although true, may seem both fantastic and

incredible in the extreme.

The railroad by which Pompeii is reached runs for almost its entire

length by the sea, whose long volutes of foam advance to unroll

themselves upon a beach of blackish sand resembling sifted charcoal.

This beach has actually been formed by lava-streams and volcanic

cinders, and its deep tone forms a strong contrast with the blue of the

sky and the blue of the waters. The earth alone, in that sunny

brightness, seems able to retain a shadow.

The villages bordered or traversed by the railway--Portici, celebrated

in one of Auber's operas; Resina, Torre del Græco, Torre dell'

Annunziata, whose dwellings with their arcades and terraced roofs

attract the traveller's gaze--have, notwithstanding the intensity of the

sunlight and the southern love for whitewashing, something of a

Plutonian and ferruginous character like Birmingham or Manchester. The

very dust is black there. An impalpable soot clings to everything. One

feels that the mighty forge of Vesuvius is panting and smoking only a

few paces off.

The three friends left the station at Pompeii, laughing among themselves

at the odd commingling of antique and modern ideas suggested by the

sign, "Pompeii Station"--a Græco-Roman city and a railway depot!

They crossed the cotton-field, with its fluttering white bolls, between

the railway and the disinterred city, and at the inn which has been

built just without the ancient rampart they took a guide, or, more

correctly speaking, the guide took them, a calamity which is not easily

avoided in Italy.

It was one of those delightful days so common in Naples, when the

brilliancy of the sunlight and the transparency of the air cause objects

to take such hues as in the North would be deemed fabulous, and appear

indeed to belong to the world of dreams rather than to that of

realities. The Northern visitor who has once looked upon that glow of

azure and gold is apt to carry back with him into the depths of his

native fogs an incurable nostalgia.

Having shaken off a corner of her cinder shroud, the resurrected city

again rose with her thousand details under a dazzling day. The cone of

Vesuvius, furrowed with striæ of blue, rosy, and violet-hued lavas,

ruddily bronzed by the sun, towered sharply defined in the background. A

thin haze, almost imperceptible in the sunlight, hooded the blunt crest

of the mountain. At first sight it might have been taken for one of

those clouds which shadow the brows of lofty peaks on the fairest days.

Upon a nearer view, slender threads of white vapor could be perceived

rising from the mountain-summit, as from the orifices of a perfuming

pan, to reunite above in a light cloud. The volcano, being that day in a

good humor, smoked his pipe very peacefully; and but for the example of

Pompeii, buried at his feet, no one would ever have suspected him of

being by nature any more ferocious than Montmartre. On the other side

fair hills, with outlines voluptuously undulating like the hips of a

woman, barred the horizon; and, further yet, the sea, that in other days

bore biremes and triremes under the ramparts of the city, extended its

azure boundary.

Of all spectacles, the sight of Pompeii is one of the most surprising.

This sudden backward leap of nineteen centuries astonishes even the

least comprehensive and most prosaic natures. Two paces lead you from

the antique life to the life of to-day, and from Christianity to

paganism. Thus, when the three friends beheld those streets wherein the

forms of a vanished past are preserved yet intact, they were strangely

and profoundly affected, however well prepared by the study of books and

drawings they might have been. Octavian, above all, seemed stricken with

stupefaction, and like a man walking in his sleep, mechanically followed

the guide, without hearing the monotonous nomenclature that the varlet

had learned by heart and recited like a lesson.

He gazed wildly on those ruts hollowed out in the cyclopean pavements of

the streets by the chariot wheels, and which seem to be of yesterday,

so fresh do they appear; those inscriptions in red letters skilfully

traced upon the surfaces of the walls by rapid strokes of the brush

(theatrical advertisements, notices of houses to let, votive formulas,

signs, announcements of all descriptions, not less curious than a

freshly discovered fragment of the walls of Paris, with advertising

bills and placards attached, would prove a thousand years hence for the

unknown people of the future); those houses, whose shattered roofs

permit one to penetrate at a glance into all those interior mysteries,

all those domestic details which historians invariably neglect, and

whereof the secrets die with dying civilizations; those fountains that

even now seem scarcely dried up; that forum whose restoration was

interrupted by the great catastrophe, and whose architraves and columns,

all ready cut and sculptured, still seem waiting in their purity of

angle to be lifted into place; those temples, consecrated, in that

mythologic age when atheists were yet unknown, to gods that have long

ceased to be; those shops wherein the merchant only is missing; that

public tavern where may still be seen the circular stain of the drinking

cups upon the marble; that barracks with its ochre and minium-painted

columns, on which the soldiers scratched grotesque caricatures of

battle, and those juxtaposed double theatres of song and drama which

might even now resume their entertainments, were not the companies who

performed in them turned long since to clay, and at present occupied

perchance in closing the bunghole of a cask or stopping a crevice in the

wall, after the fashion of Alexander's ashes or Cæsar's dust, according

to the melancholy reflections of Hamlet!

Fabio mounted upon the thymele of the tragic theatre while Max and

Octavian climbed to the upper benches; and there, with extravagant

gestures, he commenced to recite whatever poetical fragments came to his

memory, much to the terror of the lizards, who fled, vibrating their

tails, and hid themselves in the joints of the ruined stonework.

Although the brazen or earthen vessels formerly used to reverberate

sounds no longer existed, Fabio's voice sounded none the less full and

vibrant.

The guide then conducted them across the open fields which overlie those

portions of Pompeii still buried, to the amphitheatre situated at the

other end of the city. They passed under those trees whose roots plunge

down through the roofs of the edifices interred, displacing tiles,

cleaving ceilings asunder, and disjointing columns; and they traversed

the farms where vulgar vegetables sprout above wonders of art--material

images of that oblivion wherewith time covers all things.

The amphitheatre caused them little surprise. They had seen that of

Verona, vaster and equally well preserved; besides, the arrangement of

such antique arenas was as familiar to them as that of those in which

bull-fights are held in Spain, and which they much resemble save in

solidity of construction and beauty of material.

Accordingly they soon retraced their footsteps and gained the Street of

Fortune by a cross-path, listening half-distractedly to the _cicerone_,

who named each house they passed by the name which had been given it

immediately upon its discovery, owing to some characteristic

peculiarity--the House of the Brazen Bull, the House of the Faun, the

House of the Ship, the Temple of Fortune, the House of Meleager, the

Tavern of Fortune, at the angle of the Consular Road (Via Consularia),

the Academy of Music, the Public Market, the Pharmacy, the Surgeon's

Shop, the Custom House, the House of the Vestals, the Inn of Albinus,

the Thermopolium, and so on--until they came to that gate which leads to

the Street of the Tombs.

Within the interior arch of this brick-built gate, once adorned with

statues which have long since disappeared, may be noticed two deep

grooves designed to receive a sliding portcullis, after the style of a

mediæval donjon, to which era, indeed, one might have supposed such a

defence peculiar.

"Who," exclaimed Max to his friends, "could have dreamed of finding in

Pompeii, the Græco-Latin city, a gate so romantically Gothic? Fancy

some belated Roman knight blowing his horn before this entrance,

summoning them to raise the portcullis, like a page of the fifteenth

century!"

"There is nothing new under the sun," replied Fabio; "and the aphorism

itself is not new, inasmuch as it was formulated by Solomon."

"Perhaps there may be something new under the moon," observed Octavian,

with a smile of melancholy irony.

"My dear Octavian," cried Max, who during this little conversation had

paused before an inscription traced in rubric upon the outer wall, "wilt

behold the combats of the gladiators? See the advertisement! Combat and

chase on the 5th day of the nones of April; the masts of the velarium

will be rigged; twenty pairs of gladiators will fight during the nones;

if you fear for the delicacy of your complexion, be assured that the

awnings will be spread; and as you might in any case prefer to visit the

amphitheatre early, these men will cut each other's throats in the

morning--_matutini erunt._ Nothing could be more considerate."

Thus chatting, the three friends followed that sepulchre-fringed road

which, according to our modern ideas, would be a lugubrious avenue for

any city, but which had no sad significations for the ancients, whose

tombs contained in lieu of hideous corpses only a pinch of

dust--abstract idea of death! Art beautified these last resting-places,

and, as Goethe says, the pagan decorated sarcophagi and funeral urns

with the images of life.

It was therefore, doubtless, that Fabio and Max could visit, with a

lively curiosity and a joyous sense of being, such as they could not

have felt in any Christian cemetery, those funeral monuments, all gayly

gilded by the sun, which, as they stood by the wayside, seemed still

trying to cling to life, and inspired none of those chill feelings of

repulsion, none of those fantastic terrors evoked by our modern dismal

places of sepulture. They paused before the tomb of Mammia, the public

priestess, near which a tree (either a cypress or a willow) is growing;

they seated themselves in the hemicycle of the triclinium, where the

funeral feasts were held, laughing like fortunate heirs; they read with

mock solemnity the epitaphs of Navoleia, Labeon, and the Arria family,

silently followed by Octavian, who seemed more deeply touched than his

careless companions by the fate of those dead of two thousand years ago.

Thus they came to the villa of Arrius Diomedes, one of the finest

residences in Pompeii. It is approached by a flight of brick steps, and

after entering the door-way, which is flanked by two small lateral

columns, one finds himself in a court resembling the _patio_ which

occupies the centre of Spanish and Moorish dwellings, and which the

ancients termed _impluvium_ or _cavædium._ Fourteen columns of brick,

overlaid with stucco, once supported on four sides a portico or covered

peristyle, not unlike a convent cloister, and beneath which one could

walk secure from the rain. This courtyard is paved in mosaic with brick

and white marble, which presents a subdued and pleasing effect of color.

In its centre a quadrilateral marble basin, which still exists, formerly

caught the rain-water that dripped from the roof of the portico. It was

a strange experience, entering thus into the life of the antique world,

and treading with well-blacked boots upon the marbles worn smooth by the

sandals and buskins of the contemporaries of Augustus and Tiberius.

The cicerone led them through the _exedra_ or summer parlor, which

opened to the sea, to receive its cooling breezes. It was there that the

family received company, and took their siesta during those burning

hours when prevailed the mighty zephyr of Africa, laden with languors

and storms. He brought them into the basilica, a long open gallery which

lighted the various apartments, and in which clients and visitors erst

awaited the call of the Nomenclator. Then he conducted them to the white

marble terrace, whence extended a broad view of verdant gardens and blue

sea. Then he showed them the _Nymphæum_, or Hall of Baths, with its

yellow-painted walls, its stucco columns, its mosaic pavement, and its

marble bathing-basin which had contained so many of the lovely bodies

that have long since passed away like shadows; the _cubiculum_, where

flitted so many dreams from the Ivory Gate, and whose alcoves contrived

in the wall were once closed by a _conopeum_ or curtain, of which the

bronze rings still lie upon the floor; the _tetrastyle_, or Hall of

Recreation; the Chapel of the Lares; the Cabinet of Archives; the

Library; the Museum of Paintings; the _gynæceum_ or women's apartment,

comprising a suite of small chambers, now half fallen into ruin, but

whose walls yet bear traces of paintings and arabesques, like fair

cheeks from which the rouge has been but half wiped off.

Having fully inspected all these, they descended to the lower floor, for

the ground is much lower on the garden side than it is on the side of

the Street of the Tombs. They traversed eight halls painted in antique

red, whereof one has its walls hollowed with architectural niches, after

that style of which we have to-day a good example in the vestibule of

the Hall of the Ambassadors at the Alhambra, and finally they came to a

sort of cave or cellar, whose purpose was clearly indicated by eight

earthen amphoræ propped up against the wall, and once perfumed,

doubtless, like the odes of Horace with the wines of Crete, Falernia, or

Massica.

One solitary bright ray of sunshine streamed through a narrow aperture

above, half choked by nettles, whose light-traversed leaves it

transformed into emeralds and topazes, and this gay natural detail

seemed to smile opportunely through the sadness of the place.

"It was here," observed the cicerone, in his customary indifferent tone,

"that among seventeen others was found the skeleton of the lady whose

mould is exhibited at the Naples Museum. She wore gold rings, and the

shreds of her fine tunic still clung to the mass of cinders which have

preserved her shape."

The guide's commonplace phrases deeply affected Octavian. He made the

man point out to him the exact spot where the precious remains had been

discovered, and had it not been for the restraining presence of his

friends, he would have abandoned himself to some extravagant lyrism. His

chest heaved, his eyes glistened with a furtive moisture. Though blotted

out by twenty centuries of oblivion, that catastrophe touched him like a

recent misfortune. Not even the death of a mistress or a friend could

have affected him more profoundly; and while Max and Fabio had their

backs turned, a tear, two thousand years late, fell upon the spot where

that woman, with whom he felt he had fallen retrospectively in love, had

perished, suffocated by the hot cinders of the volcano.

"Enough of this archæology," cried Fabio. "We do not propose to write

dissertations upon an ancient jug or a tile of the age of Julius Cæsar

in order to obtain memberships in some provincial academy. These classic

souvenirs give me the stomachache. Let us go to dinner--if such a thing

be possible--in that picturesque hostelry, where I fear we shall be

served with fossil beefsteaks and fresh eggs laid prior to the death of

Pliny."

"I will not exclaim with Boileau:

'Un sot, quelquefois, ouvre un avis important,'"

exclaimed Max, with a laugh. "That would be ill-mannered, but your idea

is a good one. Still, I think it would have been pleasant to banquet

here, on some triclinium, reclining after the antique fashion, and

waited upon by slaves according to the style of Lucullus or Trimalchio.

It is true that I see no oysters from Lake Lucrinus, the turbots and

mullets from the Adriatic are wanting, the Apuleian boar cannot be had

in market, and the loaves and honey-cakes on exhibition in the Naples

Museum lie, hard as stones, beside their green-gray moulds. Even raw

macaroni sprinkled with _cacciacavallo,_ detestable as it may be, is

certainly better than nothing. What does friend Octavian think about

it?"

Octavian, who was deeply regretting that he had not happened to be in

Pompeii on the day of the eruption, so that he might have saved the lady

of the gold rings, and thereby merited her love, had not heard a

syllable of this gastronomic conversation. Only the last two words

uttered by Max had fallen upon his ears, and feeling no desire to broach

a discussion, he gave a random nod of assent, upon which the amicable

party retraced the road along the ramparts to the inn.

The table was placed under a sort of open porch which served as a

vestibule to the hostelry, whose rough cast walls were decorated with

various daubs that the host entitled "Salvator Rosa," "Espagnolet,"

"Cavalier Massimo," and other celebrated names of the Neapolitan School,

which he deemed himself bound to extol.

"Venerable host," cried Fabio, "do not waste your eloquence to no

purpose. We are not Englishmen, and we prefer young women to old

canvases. Better send us your wine-list by that handsome brunette with

the velvety eyes whom I just now perceived on the stairway."

Finding that his guests did not belong to the mystifiable class of

Philistines and _bourgeois_, the _palforio_ ceased to vaunt his gallery

in order to glorify his cellar. To begin with, he had all the best

vintages: Château Margaux, Grand Lafitte which had been twice to the

Indies, Sillery de Moët, Hochmeyer, scarlet wine, port and porter, ale

and ginger beer, white and red Lachryma-Christi, Caprian, and Falernian.

"What, you have Falernian wine, _animal!_ And put it at the end of your

list! And you dare to subject us to an unendurable œnological litany!"

cried Max, leaping at the inn-keeper's throat with burlesque fury. "Why,

you have no sentiment of local color. You are unworthy to live in this

antique neighborhood. Is it even good, this Falernian wine of yours? Was

it put in amphoræ under the Consul Plancus--_Consule Planco?_"

"I know nothing about the Consul Plancus, and my wine is not put in

amphoræ, but it is good, and worth ten carlins a bottle," answered the

inn-keeper.

Day had faded away and the night came, a serene, transparent night,

clearer, assuredly, than full midday in London. The earth had tints of

azure, and the sky silvery reflections of inconceivable sweetness. The

air was so still that the flames of the candles on the table did not

oscillate.

A young boy, playing a flute, approached the table, and standing there,

with his eyes fixed upon the three guests, performed upon his sweet and

melodious instrument, one of those popular airs in a minor key which

have a penetrating charm.

Perhaps that lad was a direct descendant of the flute-player who marched

before Duilius.

"Our repast is assuming quite an antique aspect. We only need some

Gaditanian dancing women and ivy garlands," exclaimed Max, as he helped

himself to a great bumper of Falernian wine.

"I feel myself in the humor for making Latin quotations like a

_feuilleton_ in the _Débats_. Stanzas of odes come back to my memory,"

added Max.

"Keep them to yourself!" cried Fabio and Octavian, justly alarmed.

"Nothing is so indigestible as Latin at dinner."

Among young men with cigars in their mouths and elbows on the table, who

find themselves contemplating a certain number of empty flagons,

especially when the wine has been capitally good, conversation never

fails to turn upon women. Each explained his own system, whereof the

following is a fair summary:

Fabio cared only for youth and beauty. Voluptuous and positive, he found

no pleasure in illusions, and had no preferences in love. A peasant

girl would have pleased his fancy as well as a princess, provided she

were beautiful. The body rather than its apparel attracted him. He

laughed much at certain of his friends who were enamored of so many

yards of lace and silk, and he declared it were more rational to fall in

love with the stock of a fashionable _marchand des nouveautés_. These

opinions, which were rational enough in the main, and which he made no

attempt to conceal, caused him to pass for an eccentric.

Max, less of an artist than Fabio, cared only for difficult

undertakings, complicated intrigues. He sought resistances to vanquish,

virtues to seduce, and played at love as at a game of chess, with

long-premeditated moves, reserved ambuscades, and stratagems worthy of

Polybius. In a drawing-room he would always choose the woman who seemed

least in sympathy with him for the object of attack. To make her pass by

skilful transition from aversion to love afforded him delicious

pleasure. To impose himself upon characters which strove to repel him,

and master wills that rebelled against his influence, seemed to him the

sweetest of all triumphs. Like those hunters who, through rain,

sunshine, or snow, through fields and woods, and over plains, pursue

with excessive fatigue and unconquerable ardor some miserable quarry

which in three cases out of four they would not deign to eat, so Max,

having once captured his prey, troubled himself no further about it, and

at once started off on another chase.