Free One of Cleopatra's Nights by Théophile Gautier Page B

indicated, replied: "It is the ancient palace which the
Prince Concini has given to the courtesan Clarimonde. Awful things are
done there!"
    At that instant, I know not yet whether it was a reality or an illusion,
I fancied I saw gliding along the terrace a shapely white figure, which
gleamed for a moment in passing and as quickly vanished. It was
Clarimonde.
    Oh, did she know that at that very hour, all feverish and restless—from
the height of the rugged road which separated me from her and which,
alas! I could never more descend—I was directing my eyes upon the
palace where she dwelt, and which a mocking beam of sunlight seemed to
bring nigh to me, as though inviting me to enter therein as its lord?
Undoubtedly she must have known it, for her soul was too sympathetically
united with mine not to have felt its least emotional thrill, and that
subtle sympathy it must have been which prompted her to climb—although
clad only in her night-dress—to the summit of the terrace, amid the icy
dews of the morning.
    The shadow gained the palace, and the scene became to the eye only a
motionless ocean of roofs and gables, amid which one mountainous
undulation was distinctly visible. Sérapion urged his mule forward, my
own at once followed at the same gait, and a sharp angle in the road at
last hid the city of S— forever from my eyes, as I was destined never
to return thither. At the close of a weary three-days' journey through
dismal country fields, we caught sight of the cock upon the steeple of
the church which I was to take charge of, peeping above the trees, and
after having followed some winding roads fringed with thatched cottages
and little gardens, we found ourselves in front of the façade, which
certainly possessed few features of magnificence. A porch ornamented
with some mouldings, and two or three pillars rudely hewn from
sandstone; a tiled roof with counterforts of the same sandstone as the
pillars, that was all. To the left lay the cemetery, overgrown with high
weeds, and having a great iron cross rising up in its centre; to the
right stood the presbytery, under the shadow of the church. It was a
house of the most extreme simplicity and frigid cleanliness. We entered
the enclosure. A few chickens were picking up some oats scattered upon
the ground; accustomed, seemingly, to the black habit of ecclesiastics,
they showed no fear of our presence and scarcely troubled themselves to
get out of our way. A hoarse, wheezy barking fell upon our ears, and we
saw an aged dog running toward us.
    It was my predecessor's dog. He had dull bleared eyes, grizzled hair,
and every mark of the greatest age to which a dog can possibly attain. I
patted him gently, and he proceeded at once to march along beside me
with an air of satisfaction unspeakable. A very old woman, who had been
the housekeeper of the former cure, also came to meet us, and after
having invited me into a little back parlor, asked whether I intended to
retain her. I replied that I would take care of her, and the dog, and
the chickens, and all the furniture her master had bequeathed her at his
death. At this she became fairly transported with joy, and the Abbé
Sérapion at once paid her the price which she asked for her little
property.
    As soon as my installation was over, the Abbé Sérapion returned to the
seminary. I was, therefore, left alone, with no one but myself to look
to for aid or counsel. The thought of Clarimonde again began to haunt
me, and in spite of all my endeavors to banish it, I always found it
present in my meditations. One evening, while promenading in my little
garden along the walks bordered with box-plants, I fancied that I saw
through the elm-trees the figure of a woman, who followed my every
movement, and that I beheld two sea-green eyes gleaming through the
foliage; but it was only an illusion, and on going round to the other
side of the garden, I could find nothing except a footprint on the
sanded walk—a footprint so small that it