Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories (14 page)

I shall not dwell longer upon these inward defeats and victories which were always followed by greater falls, but I shall pass at once to a decisive circumstance. One night there was a violent ringing at my door. The housekeeper went to open it, and a dark complexioned man, richly dressed in a foreign fashion, wearing a long dagger, showed under the rays of Barbara’s lantern. Her first movement was one of terror, but the man reassured her, and told her that he must see me at once on a matter concerning my ministry. Barbara brought him upstairs. I was just about to go to bed. The man told me that his mistress, a very great lady, was dying and asking for a priest. I replied that I was ready to follow him, took what was needed for extreme unction, and descended quickly. At the door were impatiently pawing and stamping two horses black as night, breathing out long jets of smoke. He held the stirrup for me and helped me to mount one, then sprang on the other, merely resting his hand upon the pommel of the saddle. He pressed in his knees and gave his horse its head, when it went off like an arrow. My own, of which he held the bridle, also started at a gallop and kept up easily with the other. We rushed over the ground, which flashed by us gray and streaked, and the black silhouettes of the trees fled like the rout of an army. We traversed a forest, the darkness of which was so dense and icy that I felt a shudder of superstitious terror. The sparks which our horses’ hoofs struck from the stones formed a trail of fire, and if any one had seen us at that time of night, he would have taken us for two spectres bestriding nightmares. From time to time will-o’-the-wisps flashed across the road, and the jackdaws croaked sadly in the thickness of the wood, in which shone here and there the phosphorescent eyes of wildcats. Our horses’ manes streamed out wildly, sweat poured down their sides, and their breath came short and quick through their nostrils; but when the equerry saw them slackening speed, he excited them by a guttural cry which had nothing of human in it, and the race began again madder than ever. At last our whirlwind stopped. A black mass dotted with brilliant points suddenly rose before us. The steps of our steeds sounded louder upon the ironbound flooring, and we entered under an archway the sombre mouth of which yawned between two huge towers. Great excitement reigned in the château. Servants with torches in their hands were traversing the courts in every direction, and lights were ascending and descending from story to story. I caught a confused glimpse of vast architecture,—columns, arcades, steps, stairs, a perfectly regal and fairylike splendour of construction. A negro page, the same who had handed me Clarimonda’s tablets, and whom I at once recognised, helped me to descend, and a majordomo, dressed in black velvet, with a gold chain around his neck and an ivory cane, advanced towards me. Great tears fell from his eyes and flowed down his cheeks upon his white beard. “Too late,” he said, shaking his head. “Too late, my lord priest. But if you have not been able to save the soul, come and pray for the poor body.” He took me by the arm and led me to the room of death. I wept as bitterly as he did, for I had understood that the dead woman was none else than Clarimonda, whom I had loved so deeply and madly. A
prie-dieu
was placed by the bedside; a bluish flame rising from a bronze cup cast through the room a faint, vague light, and here and there brought out of the shadow the corner of a piece of furniture or of a cornice. On a table, in a chased urn, was a faded white rose, the petals of which, with a single exception, had all fallen at the foot of the vase like perfumed tears. A broken black mask, a fan, and disguises of all kinds lay about on the armchairs, showing that death had entered this sumptuous dwelling unexpectedly and without warning. I knelt, not daring to cast my eyes on the bed, and began to recite the psalms with great fervour, thanking God for having put the tomb between the thought of that woman and myself, so that I might add to my prayers her name, henceforth sanctified. Little by little, however, my fervour diminished, and I fell into a reverie. The room had in no wise the aspect of a chamber of death. Instead of the fetid and cadaverous air which I was accustomed to breathe during my funeral watches, a languorous vapour of Oriental incense, a strange, amorous odour of woman, floated softly in the warm air. The pale light resembled less the yellow flame of the night-light that flickers by the side of the dead than the soft illumination of voluptuousness. I thought of the strange chance which made me meet Clarimonda at the very moment when I had lost her forever, and a sigh of regret escaped from my breast. I thought I heard some one sigh behind me, and I turned involuntarily. It was the echo. As I turned, my eyes fell upon the state-bed which until then I had avoided looking at. The red damask curtains with great flowered pattern, held back by golden cords, allowed the dead woman to be seen, lying full length, her hands crossed on her breast. She was covered with a linen veil of dazzling whiteness, made still more brilliant by the dark purple of the hangings; it was so tenuous that it concealed nothing of the charming form of her body, and allowed me to note the lovely lines, undulating like the neck of a swan, which even death itself had been unable to stiffen. She looked like an alabaster statue, the work of some clever sculptor, intended to be placed on a queen’s tomb, or a young sleeping girl on whom snow had fallen.

I was losing my self-mastery. The sensuous air intoxicated me, the feverish scent of the half-faded rose went to my brain, and I strode up and down the room, stopping every time before the dais to gaze at the lovely dead woman through her transparent shroud. Strange thoughts came into my mind; I imagined that she was not really dead, that this was but a feint she had employed to draw me to her château and to tell me of her love. Once indeed I thought I saw her foot move under the white veil, disarranging the straight folds of the shroud.

Then I said to myself, “But is it Clarimonda? How do I know? The black page may have passed into some other woman’s service. I am mad to grieve and worry as I am doing.” But my heart replied, as it beat loud, “It is she,—it is none but she.” I drew nearer the bed and gazed with increased attention at the object of my uncertainty. Shall I confess it? The perfection of her form, though refined and sanctified by the shadow of death, troubled me more voluptuously than was right, and her repose was so like sleep that any one might have been deceived by it. I forgot that I had come there to perform the funeral offices, and I imagined that I was a young husband entering the room of his bride who hides her face through modesty and will not allow herself to be seen. Sunk in grief, mad with joy, shivering with fear and pleasure, I bent towards her and took up the corner of the shroud; I raised it slowly, holding in my breath for fear of waking her. My arteries palpitated with such force that I felt the blood surging in my temples and my brow was covered with sweat as if I had been lifting a marble slab. It was indeed Clarimonda, such as I had seen her in the church on the day of my ordination. She was as lovely as then, and death seemed to be but a new coquetry of hers. The pallor of her cheeks, the paler rose of her lips, the long-closed eyelashes showing their brown fringes against the whiteness, gave her an inexpressibly seductive expression of melancholy chastity and of pensive suffering. Her long hair, undone, in which were still a few little blue flowers, formed a pillow for her head and protected with its curls the nudity of her shoulders. Her lovely hands, purer and more diaphanous than the Host, were crossed in an attitude of pious repose and of silent prayer that softened the too great seduction, even in death, of the exquisite roundness and the ivory polish of her bare arms from which the pearl bracelets had not been removed. I remained long absorbed in mute contemplation. The longer I looked at her, the less I could believe that life had forever forsaken that lovely frame. I know not whether it was an illusion or a reflection of the lamp, but it seemed to me that the blood was beginning to course again under the mat pallor; yet she still remained perfectly motionless. I gently touched her arm; it was cold, yet no colder than her hand on the day it touched me under the porch of the church. I resumed my position, bending my face over hers, and let fall upon her cheeks the warm dew of my tears. Oh, what a bitter despair and powerlessness I felt! Oh, what agony I underwent during that watch! I wished I could take my whole life in order to give it to her, and breathe upon her icy remains the flame that devoured me. Night was passing, and feeling the moment of eternal separation approaching, I was unable to refuse myself the sad and supreme sweetness of putting one kiss upon the dead lips of her who had had all my love. But, oh, wonder! A faint breath mingled with mine, and Clarimonda’s lips answered to the pressure of mine. Her eyes opened, became somewhat brighter, she sighed, and moving her arms, placed them around my neck with an air of ineffable delight. “Oh, it is you, Romualdo!” she said in a voice as languishing and soft as the last faint vibrations of a harp. “I waited for you so long that I am dead. But now we are betrothed; I shall be able to see you and to come to you. Farewell, Romualdo, farewell! I love you; that is all I wish to say to you, and I give you back the life which you have recalled to me for one moment with your kiss. Good-bye, but not for long.”

Her head fell back, but her arms were still around me as if to hold me. A wild gust of wind burst in the window and rushed into the room; the last leaf of the white rose fluttered for a moment like a wing at the top of the stem, then broke away and flew out of the casement, bearing Clarimonda’s soul. The lamp went out and I swooned away on the bosom of the lovely dead.

When I recovered my senses, I was lying on my bed in my little room in my house, and the old dog of the former priest was licking my hand that was hanging out from under the blanket. Barbara, shaky with old age, was busy opening and closing drawers and mixing powders in glasses. On seeing me open my eyes, the old woman uttered a cry of joy, while the dog yelped and wagged his tail; but I was so weak that I could neither move nor speak. I learned later that I had remained for three days in that condition, giving no other sign of life than faint breathing. These three days are cut out of my life. I do not know where my mind was during that time, having absolutely no remembrance of it. Barbara told me that the same copper-complexioned man who had come to fetch me during the night, had brought me back the next morning in a closed litter and had immediately departed. As soon as I could collect my thoughts, I went over in my own mind all the circumstances of that fatal night. At first I thought I had been the dupe of some magical illusion, but real and palpable circumstances soon shattered that supposition. I could not believe I had been dreaming, since Barbara had seen, just as I had, the man with two black horses, and described his dress and appearance accurately. Yet no one knew of any château in the neighbourhood answering to the description of that in which I had again met Clarimonda.

One morning I saw Father Serapion enter. Barbara had sent him word that I was ill, and he had hastened to come to me. Although this eagerness proved affection for and interest in me, his visit did not give me the pleasure I should have felt. The penetration and the inquisitiveness of his glance troubled me; I felt embarrassed and guilty in his presence. He had been the first to notice my inward trouble, and I was annoyed by his clear-sightedness. While asking news of my health in a hypocritically honeyed tone he fixed upon me his two yellow, lion-like eyes, and plunged his glance into my soul like a sounding-rod. Then he asked me a few questions as to the way in which I was working my parish, if I enjoyed my position, how I spent the time which my duties left me, if I had made any acquaintances among the inhabitants of the place, what was my favourite reading, and many other details of the same kind. I answered as briefly as possible, and he himself, without waiting for me to finish, passed on to something else. The conversation evidently had nothing to do with what he meant to say to me. Then, without any preparation, as if it were a piece of news which he had just recollected and which he was afraid to again forget, he said, in a clear, vibrant voice that sounded in my ear like the trump of the Last Judgment:—

“The great courtesan Clarimonda died recently, after an orgy that lasted eight days and nights. It was infernally splendid. They renewed the abominations of the feasts of Belshazzar and Cleopatra. What an age we are living in! The guests were served by dark slaves speaking an unknown language, who, I think, must have been fiends; the livery of the meanest of them might have served for the gala dress of an emperor. There have always been very strange stories about this Clarimonda; all her lovers have died a wretched and violent death. It is said that she was a ghoul, a female vampire, but I am of opinion that she was Beelzebub in person.”

He was silent and watched me more attentively than ever to see the effect his words produced upon me. I had been unable to repress a start on hearing the name of Clarimonda, and the news of her death, besides the grief it caused me, through the strange coincidence with the nocturnal scene of which I had been a witness, filled me with a trouble and terror that showed in my face in spite of the efforts I made to master myself. Serapion looked at me anxiously and severely; then he said, “My son, I am bound to warn you that you have one foot over the abyss. Beware lest you fall in. Satan has a long arm, and tombs are not always faithful. The stone over Clarimonda should be sealed with a triple seal, for it is not, I am told, the first time that she has died. May God watch over you, Romualdo!”

With these words he walked slowly towards the door, and I did not see him again, for he left for S almost immediately.

I had at last entirely recovered, and had resumed my usual duties. The remembrance of Clarimonda and the words of the old priest were ever present to my mind; yet no extraordinary event had confirmed Serapion’s gloomy predictions. I therefore began to believe that his fears and my terrors were exaggerated; but one night I dreamed a dream. I had scarcely fallen asleep when I heard the curtains of my bed open and the rings sliding over the bars with a rattling sound. I sat up abruptly, leaning on my elbow, and saw the shadow of a woman standing before me. I at once recognised Clarimonda. In her hand she bore a small lamp, of the shape of those put into tombs, the light of which gave to her slender fingers a rosy transparency that melted by insensible gradations into the opaque milky whiteness of her bare arm. Her sole vestment was the linen shroud that had covered her upon her state bed, and the folds of which she drew over her bosom as if she were ashamed of being so little clothed, but her small hand could not manage it. It was so white that the colour of the drapery was confounded with that of the flesh under the pale light of the lamp. Enveloped in the delicate tissue which revealed all the contours of her body, she resembled an antique marble statue of a bather rather than a woman filled with life. Dead or living, statue or woman, shadow or body, her beauty was still the same; only the green gleam of her eyes was somewhat dulled, and her mouth, so purple of yore, had now only a pale, tender rose-tint almost like that of her cheeks. The little blue flowers which I had noticed in her hair were dried up and had lost most of their leaves. And yet she was charming, so charming that in spite of the strangeness of the adventure and the inexplicable manner in which she had entered the room, I did not experience a single thrill of terror.