"Come, dress, and let us be gone," she said, showing me a packet she
had brought. "Our horses are fretting and champing at the gate. We
should be ten leagues from here."
I arrayed myself in haste, while she instructed me, handed me the
various articles of a knight's attire, and laughed at my clumsiness.
She dressed my hair, and when all was done, gave me a little Venice
pocket-mirror in a silver frame, crying:
"What think you of yourself now? Will you take me for your valet de
chambre?"
I did not know my own face in the glass, and was no more like myself
than a statue is like the uncut stone. I was beautiful, and I was
vain of the change. The gold embroidered gallant attire made me
another man, and I marveled at the magic of a few ells of cloth,
fashioned to certain device. The character of my clothes became my
own, and in ten minutes I was sufficiently conceited.
Clarimonde watched me with a kind of maternal fondness as I walked up
and down the room, proving my new raiment as it were; then:
"Come," she cried; "enough of this child's play! Up and away, my
Romuald! We have far to go; we shall never arrive."
She took my hand and led me forth. The gates opened at her touch;
the dog did not waken as we passed.
At the gate we found the groom with three horses like those he had
led before: Tennets of Spain, the children of the wind. Swift as the
wind they sped; and the moon that had risen to light us at our going,
spun down the sky behind us like a wheel broken loose from the axle;
we seemed to see her on our right, leaping from tree to tree as she
strove to follow our course. Presently we came on a plain, where a
carriage with four horses waited for us; and the postilion drove them
to a mad gallop. My arm was round the waist of Clarimonde, her head
lay on my shoulder, her breast touched my arm. Never had I known
such delight. All that I had been was forgotten, like the months
before birth, so great was the power of the devil over my heart.
From that date mine became a double life; within me were two men that
knew each other not--the priest who dreamed that by night he was a
noble, the noble who dreamed that by night he was a priest. I could
not divide dreams from waking, nor tell where truth ended and
illusion began. Two spirals, blended but touching not, might be a
parable of my confused existence. Yet, strange as it was, I believe
I never was insane. The experience of either life dwells distinct
and separate in my memory. Only there was this inexplicable
fact--the feeling of one personality existed in both these two
different men. Of this I have never found an explanation, whether I
was for the moment the curé of the village of ----, or whether I was
Signor Romualdo, the avowed lover of Clarimonde.
Certain it is that I was, or believed myself to be, in Venice--in a
great palace on the Grand Canal, full of frescoes, statues, and rich
in two Titians of his best period--a palace fit for a king. We had
each our gondola, our liveried men, our music, our poet, for
Clarimonde loved life in the great style, and in her nature was a
touch of Cleopatra. Custom could not stale her infinite variety; to
love her was to love a score of mistresses, and you were faithless to
her with herself, so strangely she could wear the beauty of any woman
that caught your fancy. She returned my love a hundred-fold. She
scorned the gifts of young patricians and of the elders of the
Council of Ten. She refused the hand of a Foscari. Gold enough she
had, she desired only love; a young fresh love herself had wakened--a
love that found in her its first mistress and its last.
As for me, in the midst of a life of the wildest pleasure, I should
have been happy but for the nightly horror of the dream wherein I was
a curé, fasting and mortifying myself in penance for the sins of the
day. Custom made my life with her familiar, and it was rarely that I
remembered (and that never with fear) the words of the Abbé Sérapion.
For some time Clarimonde had not been herself, her health failing,
her complexion growing paler day by day. The physicians were of no
avail, and she grew cold and dead as on the wondrous night in the
nameless castle. Sadly she smiled on my distress, with the fatal
smile of those who know that their death is near. One morning I sat
on her bed, breakfasting at a small table hard by; as it chanced in
cutting a fruit I gashed my finger deeply; the blood came in purple
streams; and spurted up on Clarimonde. Her eyes brightened, her face
took on a savage joy and greed such as I had never seen. She leaped
from the bed like a cat, seized my wounded hand, and sucked the blood
with unspeakable pleasure, slowly, gently like a connoisseur tasting
some rare wine.
In her half-closed eyes the round pupil grew long in shape. Again
and again she stopped to kiss my hand, and then pressed her lips once
more on the wound, to squeeze out the red drops.
When she saw that the blood was stanched, she rose; her eyes
brilliant and humid, her face as rosy as a dawn of May, her hand warm
and moist; in short, more lovely than of old, and in perfect health.
"I shall not die! I shall not die!" she exclaimed, wild with
delight, as she embraced me. "I shall yet love thee long; for my
life is in thine, and all that is in me comes from thee. Some drops
of thy rich and noble blood, more precious than all the elixirs in
the world, have given me back my life."
This event, and the strange doubts it inspired, haunted me long.
When the night and sleep brought me back to my priest's home, I
beheld Sérapion, more anxious than ever, more careful and troubled.
He gazed on me steadfastly, and said:
"Not content with losing thy soul, thou art also desirous of ruining
thy body. Unhappy young man, in what a net hast thou fallen!"
The tone of his voice struck cold on me; but a thousand new cares
made me forget his words. Yet, one night I saw in a mirror that
Clarimonde was pouring a powder into the spiced wine-cup she mingled
after supper. I took the cup, pretending to drink, but really
casting the potion away beneath the table. Then I went to bed,
intent on watching and seeing what should come to pass. Nor did I
wait long. Clarimonde entered, cast off her night attire, and lay
down by my side. When she was assured that I slept, she uncovered my
arm, drew a golden pin from her hair, and then fell a-murmuring thus:
"One drop, one little crimson drop, one ruby on the tip of my needle!
Since thou lovest me yet, I must not die. Sleep, my god, my child,
my all; I shall not harm thee; of thy life I will but take what is
needful for mine. Alas! poor love; alas! fair purple blood that I
must drink! Ah, fair arm, so round, so white, never will I dare to
prick that pretty violet vein."
So speaking, she wept, and the tears fell hot on my arm. At length
she came to a resolve, pricked me with the needle, and sucked the
blood that flowed. But a few drops did she taste, for fear of
exhausting me, then she anointed the tiny wound, and fastened a
little bandage about my arm.
I could no longer doubt it, Sérapion had spoken sooth. Yet must I
needs love Clarimonde, and would willingly have given her all the
blood in my veins that then were rich enough. Nor was I afraid, the
woman in her was more than surety for the vampire. I could have
pricked my own arm and said, "Drink; let my love become part of thy
being with my blood." I never spoke a word of the narcotic that she
had poured out for me, never a word of the needle; we lived together
in perfect union of hearts.
It was my scruples as a priest that disquieted me. How could I touch
the Host with hands polluted in such debauches, real or dreamed of?
At night I struggled against sleep, holding mine eyelids open,
standing erect against walls; but mine eyes were filled with the sand
of sleep, and the wave carried me even where it would, down to the
siren shores.
Sérapion reproached me often. One day he came and said: "To drive
away the devil that possesses thee there is but one art; great ills
demand harsh remedies. I know where Clarimonde is buried; we must
unearth her, and the sight of the worms and the dust of death will
make thee thyself again."
So weary was I of my double life, so eager to know whether the priest
or the noble was the true man, which the dream, that I accepted his
plan, being determined to slay one or the other of the beings that
dwelt within me; ay, or to slay them both, for such a life as mine
could not endure.
The Abbé Sérapion took a lantern, a pick, a crowbar, and at midnight
we set out for the graveyard. After throwing the light of the
lantern on several tombs, we reached a stone half-hidden by tall
weeds, and covered with ivy, moss, and lichen. Thereon we read these
words graven:
ICI GIT CLARIMONDE
QUI PUT DE SON VIVANTE
LA PLUS BELLE DU MONDE
"'Tis here!" said Sérapion, who, laying down his lantern, thrust the
crowbar in a cleft of the stone, and began to raise it. Slowly it
gave place, and he set to work with the pick-ax. For me, I watched
him dark and silent as the night, while his face, when he raised it,
ran with sweat, and his laboring breath came like the death-rattle in
his throat. Methought the deed was a sacrilege, and I would fain
have seen the lightning leap from the cloud, and strike Sérapion to
ashes.
The owls of the graveyard, attracted by the light, flocked and
flapped about the lantern with their wings; their hooting sounded
wofully; the foxes barked their answer far away; a thousand evil
sounds broke from the stillness.
At length the pick of Sérapion smote the coffin-lid; the four planks
answered sullenly, as the void of nothingness replied to the touch.
Sérapion raised the coffin-lid, and there I saw Clarimonde, pale as
marble, her hands joined, the long white shroud flowing unbroken to
her feet.
On her pale mouth shone one rosy drop, and Sérapion, breaking forth
in fury, cried:
"Ah, there thou liest, devil, harlot, vampire, thou that drainest the
blood of men!"
With this he sprinkled holy water over my lady, whose fair body
straightway crumbled into earth, a dreadful mingling of dust and the
ashes of bones half-burned.
"There lies thy leman, Sir Romuald," he said; "go now and dally at
the Lido with thy beauty."
I bowed my head; within me all was ruin. Back to my poor priest's
house I went; and Romuald, the lover of Clarimonde, said farewell to
the priest, with whom so long and so strangely he had companioned.
But, next night, I saw Clarimonde.
"Wretched man that thou art," she cried, as of old under the church
porch, "what hast thou done? Why hast thou hearkened to that foolish
priest? Wert thou not happy, or what ill had I done thee that thou
must violate my tomb, and lay bare the wretchedness of the grave?
Henceforth is the link between our souls and bodies broken.
Farewell! Thou shalt desire me."
Then she fled away into air, like smoke, and I saw her no more.
Alas! it was truth she spoke; more than once have I sorrowed for
her--nay, I long for her still. Dearly purchased hath my salvation
been, and the love of God hath not been too much to replace the love
of her.
Behold, brother, all the story of my youth.
Let not thine eyes look ever upon a woman; walk always with glance
downcast; for, be ye chaste and be ye cold as ye may, one minute may
damn you to all eternity.
(_Translation by Andrew Lang._)