Then never did human face declare so keen a sorrow: the girl who sees her betrothed fall dead at her side, the mother by the empty cradle of her child, Eve at the gate of Paradise, the miser who seeks his treasure and finds a stone, even they look less sorely smitten, less inconsolable.
The blood left her fair face pale, white as marble she seemed; her lovely arms fell powerless, her feet failed beneath her, and she leaned against a pillar of the church. For me, I staggered to the door, with a white, wet face, breathless, with all the weight of all the dome upon my head. As I was crossing the threshold, a hand seized mine, a woman's hand. I had never felt before a woman's hand in mine. It was cold as the skin of a serpent, yet it burned me like a brand. "Miserable man, what hast thou done?" she whispered, and was lost in the crowd.
The old bishop paused, and gazed severely at me, who was a piteous spectacle, now red, now pale, giddy, and faint. One of my fellows had compassion on me, and led me home. I could not have found the way alone. At the corner of a street, while the young priest's head was turned, a black page, strangely clad, came up to me, and gave me, as he passed, a little leathern case, with corners of wrought gold, signing me to hide it. I thrust it into my sleeve, and there kept it till I was alone in my cell. Then I opened the clasp; there were but these words written: "Clarimonde, at the Palazzo Concini." So little of a worldling was I, that I had never heard of Clarimonde, despite her fame, nay, nor knew where the Palazzo Concini might be. I made a myriad guesses, each wilder than the other; but, truth to tell, so I did but see her again, I recked little whether Clarimonde were a noble lady, or no better than one of the wicked.
This love, thus born in an hour, had struck root too deep for me to dream of casting it from my heart. This woman had made me utterly her own, a glance had been enough to change me, her will had passed upon me; I lived not for myself, but in her and for her.
Many mad things did I, kissing my hand where hers had touched it, repeating her name for hours: Clarimonde, Clarimonde! I had but to close my eyes, and I saw her as distinctly as if she had been present. Then I murmured to myself the words that beneath the church porch she had spoken: "Miserable man, what hast thou done?" I felt all the horror of that strait wherein I was, and the dead and terrible aspect of the life that I had chosen was now revealed. To be a priest! Never to love, to know youth nor sex, to turn from beauty, to close the eyes, to crawl in the chill shade of a cloister or a church; to see none but deathly men, to watch by the nameless corpses of folk unknown, to wear a cassock like my own mourning for myself, my own raiment for my coffin's pall.
Then life arose in me like a lake in flood, my blood coursed in my veins, my youth burst forth in a moment; like the aloe, which flowers but once in a hundred years, and breaks into blossom with a sound of thunder!
How was I again to have sight of Clarimonde? I had no excuse for leaving the seminary, for I knew nobody in town, and indeed was only waiting till I should be appointed to my parish. I tried to remove the bars of the window, but to descend without a ladder was impossible. Then, again, I could only escape by night, when I should be lost in the labyrinth of streets. These difficulties, which would have been nothing to others, were enormous to a poor priest like me, now first fallen in love, without experience, or money, or knowledge of the world.
Ah, had I not been a priest I might have seen her every day, I might have been her lover, her husband, I said to myself in the blindness of my heart. In place of being swathed in a cassock I might have worn silk and velvet, chains of gold, a sword and feather like all the fair young knights. My locks would not be tonsured, but would fall in perfumed curls about my neck. But one hour spent before an altar, and some gabbled words, had cut me off from the company of the living. With my own hand I had sealed the stone upon my tomb, and turned the key in the lock of my prison!
I walked to the window. The sky was heavenly blue, the trees had clothed them in the raiment of spring, all nature smiled with mockery in her smile. The square was full of people coming and going: young exquisites, young beauties, two by two, were walking in the direction of the gardens. Workmen sang drinking songs as they passed; on all sides were a life, a movement, a gaiety that did but increase my sorrow and my solitude. A young mother, on the steps of the gate, was playing with her child, kissing its little rosy mouth, with a thousand of the caresses, the childlike and the divine caresses that are the secret of mothers. Hard by the father, with folded arms above a happy heart, smiled sweetly as he watched them. I could not endure the sight. I shut the window, and threw myself on the bed in a horrible jealousy and hatred, so that I gnawed my fingers and my coverlet like a starved wild beast.
How many days I lay thus I know not, but at last, as I turned in a spasm of rage, I saw the Abbé Sérapion curiously considering me. I bowed my head in shame, and hid my face with my hands. "Romuald, my friend," said he, "some strange thing hath befallen thee. Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may sift thee like wheat; he goeth about thee to devour thee like a raging lion. Beware and make thyself a breastplate of prayer, a shield of the mortifying of the flesh. Fight, and thou shalt overcome. Be not afraid with any discouragement, for the firmest hearts and the most surely guarded have known hours like these. Pray, fast, meditate, and the evil spirit will pass away from thee."