Fantastic Tales

by Italo Calvino

  If I had not been a priest I might have seen her every day; I should have been her lover, her husband, I told myself in my infatuation. Instead of being wrapped in my dismal shroud, I should have clothes of silk and velvet, gold chains, a sword at my side and a feather in my cap, like handsome young cavaliers. My hair, instead of being spoilt by a large tonsure, would play about my neck in wavy curls. I should have a beautiful waxed moustache and be a gallant. But an hour passed before an altar, a few scarcely articulated words, had cut me off for ever from the number of the living; I had myself sealed the stone of my tomb, pushed with my own hand the bolt of my prison!

  I went to the window. The sky was beautifully blue, the trees were clad in their spring dress; Nature seemed to make parade of an ironic gaiety. The square was full of people; they came and went; young sparks and young beauties, couple by couple, made their way towards gardens and arbours. Boon companions, passed by arm-in-arm singing drinking-songs. There was movement, life, bustle; liveliness that contrasted sadly with my mourning and my loneliness. A young mother on the doorstep played with her child, kissed the rosy little mouth still beaded with drops of milk, teased it with a thousand of those divine childishnesses which mothers alone can invent. The father, who stood at a little distance, smiled quietly on the charming group, and with folded arms hugged his happiness to his heart. I could not bear the sight; I closed the window and threw myself on my bed, my heart filled with hatred and fearful jealousy, gnawing my fingers and my blanket like a tiger that has hungered for three days.

  I do not know how long I remained thus; but, turning with a convulsive movement, I saw the Abbé Sérapion standing in the middle of the room and watching me with fixed attention. I was overcome with shame, and letting my head fall on my breast, I covered my eyes with my hands.

  “Romuald, my friend, something extraordinary is taking place in you,” said Sérapion, after a few minutes’ silence; “your behaviour is truly unaccountable! You, so pious, so calm, so gentle, you rage in your cell like a wild beast. Be on your guard, my brother, and do not listen to the promptings of the devil; the evil spirit, incensed because you are for ever consecrated to the Lord, is prowling round you like a ravenous wolf and making a last effort to draw you to him. Instead of letting yourself be downcast, my dear Romuald, make yourself a breastplate of prayers, a buckler of mortifications, and valiantly do battle with the enemy; you will conquer him. Virtue must be put to the test; gold comes out of the cupel finer than before. Do not be afraid or discouraged; the most watchful and steadfast souls have had moments such as these. Pray, fast, meditate, and the evil spirit will leave you.”

  The words of the Abbé Sérapion recalled me to myself, and I regained something of my composure.

  “I came,” he continued, “to announce to you your nomination to the living of C—. The priest who had it has just died, and Monseigneur the Bishop has directed me to instal you there; be ready to start to-morrow.”

  I replied with a movement of the head that I would be ready, and the Abbe withdrew. I opened my missal and began to read prayers; but the lines soon became confused; the sequence of thoughts in my brain became tangled, and the book dropped from my hand without my noticing it.

  I must leave to-morrow without seeing her again! Add another obstacle to all those that already lay between us! Lose for ever the hope of meeting her except by a miracle! Should I write to her? By whom could I send a letter? Considering the sacred character with which I was invested, to whom should I unbosom myself, in whom could I confide? I was distracted with doubts and fears. Then, what the Abbé Sérapion had said about the wiles of the devil came back to my mind. The strangeness of the adventure, the unearthly beauty of Clarimonde, the phosphorescent brilliance of her eyes, the burning impress of her hand, the trouble of mind into which she had thrown me, the sudden change which had taken place in me, my pious aspirations dispelled in a moment—all this proved clearly the presence of the devil, and that soft hand was perhaps only the glove with which he had sheathed his claw.

  These ideas threw me into a great terror; I picked up the missal which had fallen from my knees and betook myself again to prayer.

  The next day Sérapion came to fetch me. Two mules awaited us before the door, laden with our scanty baggage; he mounted one and I the other. As we traversed the streets of the town I glanced at all the windows and balconies in the hope of seeing Clarimonde; but it was too early, and the town was not yet awake. My eyes tried to penetrate the blinds and curtains of all the mansions before which we passed. Sérapion, doubtless, attributed this curiosity to the admiration which the beauty of the architecture excited in me, for he slackened his mount’s pace in order to give me time to look. At length we reached the town-gate and began to climb the hill. When I was at the top, I turned to take a last look at the place where Clarimonde lived. The shadow of a cloud completely covered the town; its blue and red roofs were merged in a general half-tone over which the morning smoke floated here and there, like white wisps of foam. By a curious optical effect, one edifice stood out shining and golden under a single ray of light, a house higher than the buildings near it, which were completely lost in the mist; although more than a league distant, it seemed quite near. The smallest details could be distinguished—turrets, leads, windows, even its swallow-tailed weather-cocks.

  “What is that palace I see down there lit up by a sunbeam?” I asked Sérapion.

  He shaded his eyes with his hand, and, looking towards it, answered:

  “It is the ancient palace which the Prince Concini has given to the courtesan Clarimonde; fearful things take place there.”

  At that moment—I do not know even now whether it was reality or an illusion—I thought I saw a slim white figure glide on to the terrace; it sparkled there for a moment and faded out. It was Clarimonde!

  Oh! did she know that at that very moment, from the top of the steep road that was leading me away from her, and which I was never more to descend, I was gazing, ardent and troubled, on the palace where she lived, and which a mocking play of light seemed to bring close to me, as if to bid me enter it as master? Without doubt she knew it, for her soul was linked to mine in too intimate a sympathy not to feel its faintest vibrations; and it was this consciousness that had impelled her, still arrayed in her night-robe, to ascend the terrace in the shining dews of morning.

  The shadow enveloped the palace, and there was now only a motionless sea of roofs and summits, in which nothing could be distinguished but an undulating expanse. Sérapion urged his mule forward, my own immediately fell into pace, and a bend in the road placed the town of S for ever beyond my view, for I was never to return to it. After three days of travel through rather dreary country, we saw peeping out from among the trees the weather-cock of the church at which I was to officiate; and after passing along a few crooked roads between thatched cottages and crofts, we found ourselves before its front, which was not magnificent. A porch adorned with a few flutings and two or three roughly-sculptured columns of sandstone, a tiled roof and buttresses of the same sandstone as the pillars; to the left the church-yard, overgrown with rank herbage, with a large iron cross in the middle; to the right, over-shadowed by the church, the presbytery. It was a dwelling of extreme simplicity and severe cleanliness.

  We went in. Some fowls were pecking the ground in search of scantily strewn grains of oats; apparently accustomed to the black robes of priests, they were not at all disconcerted at our intrusion, and barely disturbed themselves to allow us to pass. A cracked and husky barking reached our ears, and we saw an old dog come running towards us.

  It was my predecessor’s dog. He had the dimmed eye, gray jowl, and all the signs of the most advanced age a dog can live to. I patted him gently, and he at once began to walk by my side with an air of inexpressible satisfaction. An oldish woman, who had been housekeeper to the old cure, also came out to meet us, and after showing us into a low-ceilinged room, asked me if it was my intention to keep her. I said that I would keep her, the
dog, the fowls, and all the furniture that her master had left her at his death, which threw her into transports of joy; the Abbé Sérapion paid her on the spot the price she asked.

  My installation complete, the Abbé Sérapion returned to the seminary. I was left alone with no one but myself to rely on. The thought of Clarimonde began again to obsess me, and, strive to banish it as I might, I did not always succeed. One evening, as I strolled along the box-bordered walks of my little garden, I fancied I saw through the trimmed hedge the figure of a woman, who was following all my movements, her two sea-green eyes shining through the leaves; but it was only an illusion, for on reaching the further end of the walk, I found nothing but a foot-print on the sand, so small that one would have pronounced it the foot-mark of a child. The garden was surrounded by very high walls; I searched every nook and corner of it, but no one was there. I have never been able to explain this occurrence, which indeed was nothing compared with the strange things which were to happen to me.

  I lived thus for a year, fulfilling punctually all the duties of my state, praying, fasting, exhorting, ministering to the sick, giving so much in alms as to be deprived of the most indispensable necessities. But I felt that all was barren within me, and that the fountains of grace had dried up. I did not enjoy the happiness that the fulfilment of a holy mission gives; my thoughts were elsewhere; and Clarimonde’s words often returned to my lips like a kind of involuntary refrain. Brother, meditate well on this! For having once raised my eyes to a woman, for a fault apparently so trifling, I have suffered for years the most grievous torment; my whole life has been troubled, always and for ever.

  I will not detain you longer with these secret defeats, the victories always followed by a deeper relapse, but will pass at once to a decisive event. One night the door-bell rang violently. The old housekeeper went to open it, and a man of swarthy appearance, richly but outlandishly dressed and wearing a long sword, stood revealed in the light of Barbaras lantern. Her first feeling was one of fear, but the man reassured her and told her that he must see me immediately on a matter that concerned me as a priest. Barbara brought him upstairs to me. I was just going to bed. The man informed me that his mistress, a very great lady, was at the point of death and wished to see a priest. I replied that I was ready to accompany him; I took with me the requisites for extreme unction, and went down as quickly as I could.

  Before the door, two horses, black as night, their chests streaked with two long waves of foam, were impatiently pawing the ground. The man held the stirrup for me and helped me to mount one of them; then, resting his hand upon the pommel of the saddle, vaulted on to the other. He gripped his horse with his knees, gave it free rein, and it shot forward like an arrow. Mine, the bridle of which he held, set off at a gallop also, and kept exactly abreast of the other. We tore over the ground; the earth swept beneath us gray and streaked, and the dark outline of the trees fled past like a routed army. We passed through a forest of such dense and chilly darkness that I felt my flesh creep with a thrill of superstitious terror. The showers of sparks that our horses’ hoofs beat from the stones left a trail of fire in our wake; and if anyone had seen my guide and me at that hour of the night, he would have taken us for two phantom horsemen careering through a nightmare. Will-o’-the-wisps crossed our path from time to time, and jackdaws squawked piteously in the depths of the wood, where the phosphorescent eyes of wild cats gleamed now and then. The manes of our horses streamed more and more wildly, the sweat poured down their sides, the breath came from their nostrils panting and laboured. But when he saw them failing, the groom, to rally them, uttered a guttural cry such as human lips never uttered, and the furious pace was resumed.

  At last the whirlwind subsided; a black mass, dotted with a few points of light, rose suddenly before us; our horses’ hoofs rang more sharply on an iron causeway, and we passed under a vaulted passage which opened its dark jaws between two gigantic towers. Great excitement prevailed in the castle; servants with torches in their hands were hurrying through the courtyard in all directions, and lights were going up and down from landing to landing. I had a confused view of a vast structure, columns, arcades, and stairways, an architectural splendour altogether regal and fantastic. A Negro page, the same who had brought me Clarimonde’s pocket-book, whom I recognized immediately, came to help me dismount, and a major-domo dressed in black velvet, with a gold chain about his neck and an ivory staff in his hand, advanced to meet me. Tears flowed from his eyes, and trickled down his cheeks on to his white beard.

  “Too late!” he said, shaking his head. “Too late, sir Priest! But if you have not been able to save the soul, come and watch by the poor body.”

  He took my arm and led me to the chamber of death. I wept as bitterly as he, for I knew now that the dead woman was no other than Clarimonde, loved so much and so madly.

  A prie-Dieu was placed at the bedside; a bluish flame flickering over a bronze cup threw a feeble and uncertain light through the room and brought into twinkling prominence here and there some projecting angle of furniture or moulding. On the table, in a vase of chased silver, was a faded white rose, whose petals, save one which still clung to its stem, had fallen at the foot of the vase like fragrant tears. A broken black mask, a fan, fancy dresses of every kind lay about on the chairs, and showed that Death had come into this sumptuous dwelling unexpected and unannounced. I knelt down without daring to look towards the bed, and began to recite psalms with fervour, thanking God for having placed the tomb between the thought of this woman and myself, so that I might add to my prayers her name, henceforth sanctified.

  But little by little my enthusiasm abated, and my thoughts wandered. There was nothing of the death-chamber about this room. Instead of the fetid, corpse-infected atmosphere which I was accustomed to breathe in these funereal vigils, a languishing vapour of Eastern perfumes, an indefinable, feminine, love-inspiring scent floated gently on the warm air. The pale light suggested rather a twilight arranged for voluptuous pleasure than the yellow rays of the night-light that flickers beside a corpse. I reflected on the strange chance by which I had found Clarimonde again at the moment when I was losing her for ever, and a sigh of regret escaped my breast. It seemed as if someone sighed behind me also, and I turned involuntarily. It was an echo. As I turned, my eyes fell upon the death-bed they had till then avoided. The red damask curtains, embroidered with large flowers and relieved by spiral fringes of gold, showed the dead woman lying at full length, her hands joined on her breast. It was covered with linen drapery of dazzling whiteness, a whiteness accentuated by the dark purple of the tapestry, and so fine in texture that it in no way concealed the exquisite form of the body, and permitted the eye to follow the beautiful outlines, undulous as a swan’s neck, which death itself had not been able to stiffen. One would have said it was an alabaster statue, wrought by a clever sculptor for the tomb of a queen, or, still better, a young girl asleep with snow fallen on her.

  I could contain myself no longer: the atmosphere intoxicated me, the feverish scent of half-faded roses went to my brain; and I strode up and down the room, pausing each time before the bed to look upon the beauty that lay dead under its transparent burial robe. Strange thoughts passed through my mind; I pictured to myself that she was not really dead at all, that it was only a stratagem which she had employed to draw me to her castle and tell me of her love. For a moment I even imagined that I saw her foot move under the whiteness of her coverings, and the straight folds of the shroud change their outline.

  And then I said to myself: “Is this really Clarimonde? What proof of it have I? May not that black page have entered the service of another woman? I must be mad so to distress and agitate myself.” But my beating heart replied: “It is she, it is she!” I approached the bed again, and gazed with redoubled attention at the object of my uncertainty. Shall I confess it? That perfection of form, although purified and sanctified by the shadow of death, affected me more pleasurably than it should have done, and that repose was so like sle
ep as to deceive the onlooker.

  I forgot that I had come to discharge a funeral rite, and imagined myself a young bridegroom entering the chamber of his bride, who hides her face in modesty and will not let her charms be seen. Torn with grief, mad with joy, shivering with fear and delight, I bent towards her and took hold of the corner of the sheet; I raised it gently, holding my breath for fear of waking her. My heart beat so wildly that I felt a rushing noise in my temples, and my forehead streamed with sweat as though I had moved a slab of marble.

  It was indeed Clarimonde, as I had seen her in the church on the day of my ordination; she was just as charming, and death, with her, seemed but one form of coquetry the more. The pallor of her cheeks, the fuller rose of her lips, the long drooping lashes that made a brown fringe on the whiteness of the face, gave her an expression of melancholy chastity and pensive suffering that was inexpressibly seductive; her long loosened hair, in which a few little blue flowers were still mingled, made a pillow for her head and covered her bare shoulders with its curls; her beautiful hands, purer, more transparent than the sacrificial wafer, were crossed in an attitude of pious repose and mute prayer—an attitude that counter-balanced the too great seduction, it might have been, even in death, of the exquisite moulding and ivory whiteness of her bare arms, from which the bracelets of pearls had not been taken.