Have I ever loved, you ask me, my brother? Yes, I have loved! The
story is dread and marvelous, and, for all my threescore years, I
scarce dare stir the ashes of that memory. To you I can refuse
nothing; to a heart less steeled than yours this tale could never be
told by me. For these things were so strange that I can scarce
believe they came into my own existence. Three long years was I the
puppet of a delusion of the devil. Three long years was I a parish
priest by day, while by night, in dreams (God grant they were but
dreams!), I led the life of a child of this world, of a lost soul!
For one kind glance at a woman's face was my spirit to be doomed; but
at length, with God to aid and my patron saint, it was given to me to
drive away the evil spirit that possessed me.
I lived a double life, by night and by day. All day long was I a
pure priest of the Lord, concerned only with prayer and holy things;
but no sooner did I close my eyes in sleep than I was a young knight,
a lover of women, of horses, of hounds, a drinker, a dicer, a
blasphemer, and, when I woke at dawn, meseemed that I was fallen on
sleep, and did but dream that I was a priest. For those years of
dreaming certain memories yet remain with me; memories of words and
things that will not down. Ay, though I have never left the walls of
my vicarage, he who heard me would rather take me for one that had
lived in the world and left it, to die in religion, and end in the
breast of God his tumultuous days, than for a priest grown old in a
forgotten curé, deep in a wood, and far from the things of this earth.
Yes, I have loved as never man loved, with a wild love and a
terrible, so that I marvel my heart did not burst in twain. Oh, the
nights of long ago!
From my earliest childhood had I felt the call to be a priest. This
was the end of all my studies, and, till I was twenty-four, my days
were one long training. My theological course achieved, I took the
lesser orders, and at length, at the end of Holy Week, was to be the
hour of my ordination.
I had never entered the world; my world was the college close.
Vaguely I knew that woman existed, but of woman I never thought. My
heart was wholly pure. Even my old and infirm mother I saw but twice
a year; of other worldly relations I had none.
I had no regrets and no hesitation in taking the irrevocable vow;
nay, I was full of an impatient joy. Never did a young bridegroom so
eagerly count the hours of his wedding. In my broken sleep I dreamed
of saying the Mass. To be a priest seemed to me the noblest thing in
the world, and I would have disdained the estate of poet or of king.
To be a priest! My ambition saw nothing higher.
All this I tell you that you may know how little I deserve that which
befell me; that you may know how inexplicable was the fascination by
which I was overcome.
The great day came, and I walked to church as if I were winged or
trod on air. I felt an angelic beatitude, and marveled at the gloomy
and thoughtful faces of my companions, for we were many. The night I
had passed in prayer. I was all but entranced in ecstasy. The
bishop, a venerable old man, was in my eyes like God the Father bowed
above His own eternity, and I seemed to see heaven open beyond the
arches of the minster.
You know the ceremony: the Benediction, the Communion in both kinds,
the anointing of the palms of the hands with consecrated oil, and
finally the celebration of the Holy Rite, offered up in company with
the bishop. On these things I will not linger, but oh, how true is
the word of Job, that he is foolish who maketh not a covenant with
his eyes! I chanced to raise my head and saw before me, so near that
it seemed I could touch her, though in reality she was at some
distance, and on the farther side of the railing, a young dame
royally clad, and of incomparable beauty.
It was as if scales had fallen from my eyes; and I felt like a blind
man who suddenly recovers his sight. The bishop, so splendid a
moment ago, seemed to fade; through all the church was darkness, and
the candles paled in their sconces of gold, like stars at dawn.
Against the gloom that lovely thing shone out like a heavenly
revelation, seeming herself to be the fountain of light, and to give
it rather than receive it. I cast down my eyes, vowing that I would
not raise them again; my attention was failing, and I scarce knew
what I did. The moment afterward, I opened my eyes, for through my
eyelids I saw her glittering in a bright penumbra, as when one has
stared at the sun. Ah! how beautiful she was! The greatest
painters, when they have sought in heaven for ideal beauty, and have
brought to earth the portrait of our Lady, come never near the glory
of this vision! Pen of poet, or palette of painter, can give no idea
of her. She was tall, with the carriage of a goddess; her fair hair
flowed about her brows in rivers of gold. Like a crowned queen she
stood there, with her broad white brow, and dark eyebrows; with her
eyes that had the brightness and life of the green sea, and at one
glance made or marred the destiny of a man. They were astonishingly
clear and brilliant, shooting rays like arrows, which I could
actually see winging straight for my heart. I know not if the flame
that lighted them came from heaven or hell, but from one or other
assuredly it came.
Angel or devil, or both; this woman was no child of Eve, the mother
of us all. White teeth shone in her smile, little dimples came and
went with each movement of her mouth, among the roses of her cheeks.
There was a lustre as of agate on the smooth and shining skin of her
half-clad shoulders, and chains of great pearls no whiter than her
neck fell over her breast. From time to time she lifted her head in
snake-like motion, and set the silvery ruffles of her raiment
quivering. She wore a flame-colored velvet robe, and from the ermine
lining of her sleeves her delicate hands came and went as transparent
as the fingers of the dawn. As I gazed on her, I felt within me as
it were the opening of gates that had ever been barred; I saw sudden
vistas of an unknown future; all life seemed altered, new thoughts
wakened in my heart. A horrible pain took possession of me; each
minute seemed at once a moment and an age. The ceremony went on and
on, and I was being carried far from the world, at whose gates my new
desires were beating. I said "Yes," when I wished to say "No," when
my whole soul protested against the words my tongue was uttering. A
hidden force seemed to drag them from me. This it is perhaps which
makes so many young girls walk to the altar with the firm resolve to
refuse the husband who is forced on them, and this is why not one of
them does what she intends. This is why so many poor novices take
the veil, though they are determined to tear it into shreds, rather
than pronounce the vows. None dares cause so great a scandal before
so many observers, nor thus betray such general expectation. The
will of all imposes itself on you; the gaze of all weighs upon you
like a cope of lead. And again, all is so clearly arranged in
advance, so evidently irrevocable, that the intention of refusal is
crushed, and disappears.
The expression of the unknown beauty changed as the ceremony
advanced. Tender and caressing at first, it became contemptuous and
disdainful. With an effort that might have moved a mountain, I
strove to cry out that I would never be a priest; it was in vain; my
tongue clave to the roof of my mouth; I could not refuse even by a
sign. Though wide awake, I seemed to be in one of those nightmares,
wherein for your life you can not utter the word on which your life
depends. She appeared to understand the torture which I endured, and
cast on me a glance of divine pity and divine promise. "Be mine,"
she seemed to say, "and I shall make thee happier than God and
heaven, and His angels will be jealous of thee. Tear that shroud of
death wherein thou art swathed, for I am beauty, and I am youth, and
I am life; come to me and we shall be love. What can Jehovah offer
thee in exchange for thy youth? Our life will flow like a dream in
the eternity of a kiss. Spill but the wine from that chalice, and
thou are free, and I will carry thee to the unknown isles, and thou
shalt sleep on my breast in a bed of gold beneath a canopy of silver,
for I love thee and would fain take thee from thy God, before whom so
many noble hearts pour forth the incense of their love, which dies
before it reaches the heaven where He dwells." These words I seemed
to hear singing in the sweetest of tunes, for there was a music in
her look, and the words which her eyes sent to me resounded in my
heart as if they had been whispered in my soul. I was ready to
foreswear God, and yet I went duly through each rite of the ceremony.
She cast me a second glance, so full of entreaty and despair, that I
felt more swords pierce my breast than stabbed the heart of our Lady
of Sorrows.
It was over, and I was a priest.
Then never did human face declare so keen a sorrow: the girl who sees
her betrothed fall dead at her side, the mother by the empty cradle
of her child, Eve at the gate of Paradise, the miser who seeks his
treasure and finds a stone, even they look less sorely smitten, less
inconsolable.
The blood left her fair face pale, white as marble she seemed; her
lovely arms fell powerless, her feet failed beneath her, and she
leaned against a pillar of the church. For me, I staggered to the
door, with a white, wet face, breathless, with all the weight of all
the dome upon my head. As I was crossing the threshold, a hand
seized mine, a woman's hand. I had never felt before a woman's hand
in mine. It was cold as the skin of a serpent, yet it burned me like
a brand. "Miserable man, what hast thou done?" she whispered, and
was lost in the crowd.
The old bishop paused, and gazed severely at me, who was a piteous
spectacle, now red, now pale, giddy, and faint. One of my fellows
had compassion on me, and led me home. I could not have found the
way alone. At the corner of a street, while the young priest's head
was turned, a black page, strangely clad, came up to me, and gave me,
as he passed, a little leathern case, with corners of wrought gold,
signing me to hide it. I thrust it into my sleeve, and there kept it
till I was alone in my cell. Then I opened the clasp; there were but
these words written: "Clarimonde, at the Palazzo Concini." So little
of a worldling was I, that I had never heard of Clarimonde, despite
her fame, nay, nor knew where the Palazzo Concini might be. I made a
myriad guesses, each wilder than the other; but, truth to tell, so I
did but see her again, I recked little whether Clarimonde were a
noble lady, or no better than one of the wicked.
This love, thus born in an hour, had struck root too deep for me to
dream of casting it from my heart. This woman had made me utterly
her own, a glance had been enough to change me, her will had passed
upon me; I lived not for myself, but in her and for her.
Many mad things did I, kissing my hand where hers had touched it,
repeating her name for hours: Clarimonde, Clarimonde! I had but to
close my eyes, and I saw her as distinctly as if she had been
present. Then I murmured to myself the words that beneath the church
porch she had spoken: "Miserable man, what hast thou done?" I felt
all the horror of that strait wherein I was, and the dead and
terrible aspect of the life that I had chosen was now revealed. To
be a priest! Never to love, to know youth nor sex, to turn from
beauty, to close the eyes, to crawl in the chill shade of a cloister
or a church; to see none but deathly men, to watch by the nameless
corpses of folk unknown, to wear a cassock like my own mourning for
myself, my own raiment for my coffin's pall.
Then life arose in me like a lake in flood, my blood coursed in my
veins, my youth burst forth in a moment; like the aloe, which flowers
but once in a hundred years, and breaks into blossom with a sound of
thunder!
How was I again to have sight of Clarimonde? I had no excuse for
leaving the seminary, for I knew nobody in town, and indeed was only
waiting till I should be appointed to my parish. I tried to remove
the bars of the window, but to descend without a ladder was
impossible. Then, again, I could only escape by night, when I should
be lost in the labyrinth of streets. These difficulties, which would
have been nothing to others, were enormous to a poor priest like me,
now first fallen in love, without experience, or money, or knowledge
of the world.
Ah, had I not been a priest I might have seen her every day, I might
have been her lover, her husband, I said to myself in the blindness
of my heart. In place of being swathed in a cassock I might have
worn silk and velvet, chains of gold, a sword and feather like all
the fair young knights. My locks would not be tonsured, but would
fall in perfumed curls about my neck. But one hour spent before an
altar, and some gabbled words, had cut me off from the company of the
living. With my own hand I had sealed the stone upon my tomb, and
turned the key in the lock of my prison!
I walked to the window. The sky was heavenly blue, the trees had
clothed them in the raiment of spring, all nature smiled with mockery
in her smile. The square was full of people coming and going: young
exquisites, young beauties, two by two, were walking in the direction
of the gardens. Workmen sang drinking songs as they passed; on all
sides were a life, a movement, a gaiety that did but increase my
sorrow and my solitude. A young mother, on the steps of the gate,
was playing with her child, kissing its little rosy mouth, with a
thousand of the caresses, the childlike and the divine caresses that
are the secret of mothers. Hard by the father, with folded arms
above a happy heart, smiled sweetly as he watched them. I could not
endure the sight. I shut the window, and threw myself on the bed in
a horrible jealousy and hatred, so that I gnawed my fingers and my
coverlet like a starved wild beast.
How many days I lay thus I know not, but at last, as I turned in a
spasm of rage, I saw the Abbé Sérapion curiously considering me. I
bowed my head in shame, and hid my face with my hands. "Romuald, my
friend," said he, "some strange thing hath befallen thee. Satan hath
desired to have thee, that he may sift thee like wheat; he goeth
about thee to devour thee like a raging lion. Beware and make
thyself a breastplate of prayer, a shield of the mortifying of the
flesh. Fight, and thou shalt overcome. Be not afraid with any
discouragement, for the firmest hearts and the most surely guarded
have known hours like these. Pray, fast, meditate, and the evil
spirit will pass away from thee."
Then Sérapion told me that the priest of C---- was dead, that the
bishop had appointed me to this charge, and that I must be ready by
the morrow. I nodded assent, and the Abbé departed. I opened my
missal and strove to read in it, but the lines waved confusedly, and
the volume slipped unheeded from my hands.
Next day Sérapion came for me; two mules were waiting for us at the
gate with our slender baggage, and we mounted as well as we might.
As we traversed the streets I looked for Clarimonde, in each balcony,
at every window; but it was too early, and the city was yet asleep.
When we had passed the gates, and were climbing the height, I turned
back for a last glance at the place that was the home of Clarimonde.
The shadow of a cloud lay on the city, the red roofs and the blue
were mingled in a mist, whence rose here and there white puffs of
smoke. By some strange optical effect, one house stood up, golden in
a ray of light, far above the roofs that were mingled in the mist. A
league away though it was, it seemed quite close to us--all was plain
to see, turrets, balconies, parapets, the very weathercocks.
"What is that palace we see yonder in the sunlight?" said I to
Sérapion.
He shaded his eyes with his hand, looked, and answered:
"That is the old palace which Prince Concini has given to Clarimonde
the harlot. Therein dreadful things are done."
Even at that moment, whether it were real or a vision I know not now,
methought I saw a white and slender shape come across the terrace,
glance, and disappear. It was Clarimonde!
Ah, did she know how in that hour, at the height of the rugged way
which led me from her, even at the crest of the path I should never
tread again, I was watching her, eager and restless, watching the
palace where she dwelt, and which a freak of light and shadow seemed
to bring near me, as if inviting me to enter and be lord of all?
Doubtless she knew it, so closely bound was her heart to mine; and
this it was which had urged her, in the raiment of the night, to
climb the palace terrace in the frosty dews of dawn.
The shadow slipped over the palace, and, anon, there was but a
motionless sea of roofs, marked merely by a billowy undulation of
forms. Sérapion pricked on his mule, mine also quickened, and a
winding of the road hid from me forever the city of S----, where I
was to return no more. At the end of three days' journey through
melancholy fields, we saw the weathercock of my parish church peeping
above the trees. Some winding lanes, bordered by cottages and
gardens, brought us to the building, which was of no great splendor.
A porch with a few moldings, and two or three pillars rudely carved
in sandstone, a tiled roof with counter-forts of the same stone as
the pillars--that was all. To the left was the graveyard, deep in
tall grasses, with an iron cross in the centre. The priest's house
was to the right, in the shadow of the church. Simplicity could not
be more simple, nor cleanliness less lovely. Some chickens were
pecking at a few grains of oats on the ground as we entered. The
sight of a priest's frock seemed too familiar to alarm them, and they
scarcely moved to let us pass. Then we heard a hoarse and wheezy
bark, and an old dog ran up to greet us. He was the dog of the late
priest--dim-eyed, gray, with every sign of a dog's extreme old age.
I patted him gently, and he walked along by my side with an air of
inexpressible satisfaction. An elderly woman, my predecessor's
housekeeper, came in her turn to greet us; and when she learned that
I meant to keep her in my service, to keep the dog and the chickens,
with all the furniture that her master had left her at his
death--above all, when the Abbé Sérapion paid what she asked on the
spot--her joy knew no bounds.
When I had been duly installed, Sérapion returned to the college, and
I was left alone. Unsupported, uncomforted as I was, the thought of
Clarimonde again beset me, nor could I drive her memory away for all
my efforts. One evening, as I walked among the box-lined paths of my
little garden, I fancied that I saw among the trees the form of a
woman, who followed all my movements, and whose green eyes glistened
through the leaves. Green as the sea shone her eyes, but it was no
more than a vision, for when I crossed to the other side of the alley
nothing did I find but the print of a little foot on the sand--a foot
like the foot of a child. Now the garden was girt with high walls,
and, for all my search, I could find no living thing within them. I
have never been able to explain this incident, which, after all, was
nothing to the strange adventures that were to follow.
Thus did I live for a whole year, fulfilling every duty of the
priesthood--preaching, praying, fasting, visiting the sick, denying
myself necessaries that I might give to the poor. But within me all
was dry and barren--the fountains of grace were sealed. I knew not
the happiness which goes with the consciousness of a holy mission
fulfilled. My heart was otherwhere; the words of Clarimonde dwelt on
my lips like the ballad burden a man repeats against his will. Oh,
my brother, consider this! For the lifting up of mine eyes to behold
a woman have I been harried these many years, and my life hath been
troubled forever.
I shall not hold you longer with the story of these defeats and these
victories and the fresh defeats of my soul; let me come to the
beginning of the new life.
One night there was a violent knocking at my gate. The old
housekeeper went to open it, and the appearance of a man richly clad
in an outlandish fashion, tawny of hue, armed with a long dagger,
stood before her in the light of her lantern. She was terrified, but
he soothed her, saying that he needs must see me instantly concerning
a matter of my ministry. Barbara brought him upstairs to the room
where I was about going to bed. There the man told me that his
mistress, a lady of high degree, was on the point of death, and
desired to see a priest. I answered that I was ready to follow him,
and taking with me such matters as are needful for extreme unction, I
went down hastily. At the door were two horses, black as night,
their breath rising in white clouds of vapor. The man held my
stirrup while I mounted; then he laid one hand on the pommel and
vaulted on the other horse. Gripping his beast with his knees, he
gave him his head, and we started with the speed of an arrow, my
horse keeping pace with his own. We seemed in running to devour the
way; the earth flitted gray beneath us, the black trees fled in the
darkness like an army in rout. A forest we crossed, so gloomy and so
frozen cold that I felt in all my veins a shudder of superstitious
dread. The sparks struck from the flints by our coursers' feet
followed after us like a trail of fire, and whoever saw us must have
deemed us two ghosts riding the nightmare. Will-o'-the-wisps
glittered across our path, the night birds clamored in the forest
deeps, and now and again shone out the burning eyes of wild-cats.
The manes of the horses tossed more wildly on the wind, the sweat ran
down their sides, their breath came thick and loud. But whenever
they slackened, the groom called on them with a cry like nothing that
ever came from a human throat, and again they ran their furious
course. At last the tempest of their flight reached its goal;
suddenly there stood before us a great dark mass, with shining points
of flame. Our horses' hoofs clattered louder on a drawbridge, and we
thundered through the dark depths of a vaulted entrance which gaped
between two monstrous towers. Within the castle all was
confusion--servants with burning torches ran hither and thither
through the courts; on the staircases lights rose and fell. I beheld
a medley of vast buildings, columns, arches, parapet and balcony--a
bewildering world of royal or of fairy palaces. The negro page who
had given me the tablets of Clarimonde, and whom I recognized at a
glance, helped me to alight. A seneschal in black velvet, with a
golden chain about his neck, and an ivory wand in his hand, came
forward to meet me, great tears rolling down his cheeks to his snowy
beard.
"Too late," he said; "too late, sir priest! But if thou hast not
come in time to save the soul, watch, I pray thee, with the unhappy
body of the dead."
He took me by the arm; he led me to the hall, where the corpse was
lying, and I wept as bitterly as he, deeming that the dead was
Clarimonde, the well and wildly loved. There stood a prie-dieu by
the bed; a blue flame flickering from a cup of bronze cast all about
the chamber a doubtful light, and here and there set the shadows
fluttering. In a chiseled vase on the table was one white rose
faded, a single petal clinging to the stem; the rest had fallen like
fragrant tears and lay beside the vase. A broken mask, a fan,
masquerading gear of every kind were huddled on the chairs, and
showed that death had come, unlooked for and unheralded, to that
splendid house. Not daring to cast mine eyes upon the bed, I
kneeled, and fervently began to repeat the Psalms, thanking God that
between this woman and me He had set the tomb, so that now her name
might come like a thing enskied and sainted in my prayers.
By degrees this ardor slackened, and I fell a-dreaming. This
chamber, after all, had none of the air of a chamber of death. In
place of the fetid, corpse-laden atmosphere that I was wont to
breathe in these vigils, there floated gently through the warmth a
vapor of Orient essences, a perfume of women and of love. The pale
glimmer of the lamp seemed rather the twilight of pleasure than the
yellow burning of the taper that watches by the dead. I began to
think of the rare hazard that brought me to Clarimonde in the moment
when I had lost her forever, and a sigh came from my breast. Then
meseemed that one answered with a sigh behind me, and I turned
unconsciously. 'Twas but an echo, but, as I turned, mine eyes fell
on that which they had shunned--the bed where Clarimonde lay in
state. The flowered and crimson curtains, bound up with loops of
gold, left the dead woman plain to view, lying at her length, with
hands folded on her breast. She was covered with a linen veil, very
white and glistening, the more by reason of the dark purple hangings,
and so fine was the shroud that her fair body shone through it, with
those beautiful soft waving lines, as of the swan's neck, that not
even death could harden. Fair she was as a statue of alabaster
carved by some skilled man for the tomb of a queen; fair as a young
maid asleep beneath new-fallen snow.
I could endure no longer. The air as of a bower of love, the scent
of the faded rose intoxicated me, and I strode through the chamber,
stopping at each turn to gaze at the beautiful dead beneath the
transparent shroud. Strange thoughts haunted my brain. I fancied
that she was not really gone, that it was but a device to draw me
within her castle gates, and to tell me all her love.
Nay, one moment methought I saw her foot stir beneath its white
swathings, and break the stiff lines of the shroud.
"Is she really Clarimonde?" I asked myself presently. "What proof
have I? The black page may have entered the household of some other
lady. Mad must I be thus to disquiet myself."