Clarimonde
1836
Clarimonde
1836
Translated by Lafcadio Hearn
One of the earliest and most seductive vampire tales in Western literature, Clarimonde tells the story of Romuald, a young priest whose sacred vows crumble the moment he sees a mysterious woman in the crowd during his ordination. She visits him in dreams, and soon he discovers she is Clarimonde, a breathtaking creature who may be dead, may be a demon, may be something far worse. The priest descends into a secret life of passion, experiencing by night what he cannot admit by day: that he is utterly, fatally in love. Gautier weaves a fever-dream of sensuality and dread, where reality blurs with the supernatural and the boundary between devotion and desire becomes impossible to locate. The prose is lush, the atmosphere intoxicating, the ending devastating. This is Gothic literature at its most emotionally precise: not a tale of monsters, but of the monster within.
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“Those horses must have been Spanish jennets, born of mares mated with a zephyr; for they went as swiftly as the wind, and the moon, which had risen at our departure to give us light, rolled through the sky like a wheel detached from its carriage...””
— Théophile Gautier
“I had never been into society; for me the world was the enclosure of the college and the seminary. I had a vague knowledge that there was a something called woman, but I never dwelt upon the subject; I was absolutely innocent. I saw my infirm old mother only twice a year; that was the extent of my connection with the outside world.””
— Théophile Gautier
“Yes, I have loved as none in the world ever loved”
— Théophile Gautier
“Her eyes were a poem; their every glance was a song.””
— Théophile Gautier
“I have kept thee long in waiting, dear Romuald, and thou mayst well have thought that I had forgotten thee. But I have come from a long distance and from a place from which no one has ever before returned; there is neither moon nor sun in the country from which I come; there is naught but space and shadow; neither road nor path; no ground for the foot, no air for the wing; and yet here I am, for love is stronger than death, and it will end by vanquishing it. Ah! what gloomy faces and what terrible things I have seen in my journeying! What a world of trouble my soul, returned to this earth by the power of my will, has had in finding its body and reinstating itself therein! What mighty efforts I had to put forth before I could raise the stone with which they had covered me! See! the palms of my poor hands are all blistered from it. Kiss them to make them well, dear love!””
— Théophile Gautier
“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.””
— Théophile Gautier
“The famous courtesan Clarimonde died recently, as the result of an orgy which lasted eight days and eight nights. It was something infernally magnificent. They revived the abominations of the feasts of Belshazzar and Cleopatra. Great God! what an age this is in which we live! The guests were served by swarthy slaves speaking an unknown tongue, who to my mind had every appearance of veritable demons; the livery of the meanest among them might have served as a gala-costume for an emperor. There have always been current some very strange stories concerning this Clarimonde, and all her lovers have come to a miserable or a violent end. It has been said that she was a ghoul, a female vampire; but I believe that she was Beelzebub in person.””
— Théophile Gautier
“„Ochii ei erau cu adevărat poem iar privirile alcătuiau fiecare un cântec.””
— Théophile Gautier
