One of Cleopatra's Nights (10 page)

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.