One of Cleopatra's Nights by Théophile Gautier Page A

archway which darkly yawned between two
enormous towers. Some great excitement evidently reigned in the castle.
Servants with torches were crossing the courtyard in every direction,
and above lights were ascending and descending from landing to landing.
I obtained a confused glimpse of vast masses of architecture—columns,
arcades, flights of steps, stairways—a royal voluptuousness and elfin
magnificence of construction worthy of fairyland. A negro page—the same
who had before brought me the tablet from Clarimonde, and whom I
instantly recognized—approached to aid me in dismounting, and the
major-domo, attired in black velvet with a gold chain about his neck,
advanced to meet me, supporting himself upon an ivory cane. Large tears
were falling from his eyes and streaming over his cheeks and white
beard. "Too late!" he cried, sorrowfully shaking his venerable head.
"Too late, sir priest! But if you have not been able to save the soul,
come at least to watch by the poor body."
    He took my arm and conducted me to the death chamber. I wept not less
bitterly than he, for I had learned that the dead one was none other
than that Clarimonde whom I had so deeply and so wildly loved. A
prie-dieu
stood at the foot of the bed; a bluish flame flickering in a
bronze patera filled all the room with a wan, deceptive light, here and
there bringing out in the darkness at intervals some projection of
furniture or cornice. In a chiselled urn upon the table there was a
faded white rose, whose leaves—excepting one that still held—had all
fallen, like odorous tears, to the foot of the vase. A broken black
mask, a fan, and disguises of every variety, which were lying on the
arm-chairs, bore witness that death had entered suddenly and unannounced
into that sumptuous dwelling. Without daring to cast my eyes upon the
bed, I knelt down and commenced to repeat the Psalms for the Dead, with
exceeding fervor, thanking God that he had placed the tomb between me
and the memory of this woman, so that I might thereafter be able to
utter her name in my prayers as a name forever sanctified by death. But
my fervor gradually weakened, and I fell insensibly into a reverie. That
chamber bore no semblance to a chamber of death. In lieu of the foetid
and cadaverous odors which I had been accustomed to breathe during such
funereal vigils, a languorous vapor of Oriental perfume—I know not what
amorous odor of woman—softly floated through the tepid air. That pale
light seemed rather a twilight gloom contrived for voluptuous pleasure,
than a substitute for the yellow-flickering watch-tapers which shine by
the side of corpses. I thought upon the strange destiny which enabled me
to meet Clarimonde again at the very moment when she was lost to me
forever, and a sigh of regretful anguish escaped from my breast. Then it
seemed to me that some one behind me had also sighed, and I turned round
to look. It was only an echo. But in that moment my eyes fell upon the
bed of death which they had till then avoided. The red damask curtains,
decorated with large flowers worked in embroidery, and looped up with
gold bullion, permitted me to behold the fair dead, lying at full
length, with hands joined upon her bosom. She was covered with a linen
wrapping of dazzling whiteness, which formed a strong contrast with the
gloomy purple of the hangings, and was of so fine a texture that it
concealed nothing of her body's charming form, and allowed the eye to
follow those beautiful outlines—undulating like the neck of a
swan—which even death had not robbed of their supple grace. She seemed
an alabaster statue executed by some skilful sculptor to place upon the
tomb of a queen, or rather, perhaps, like a slumbering maiden over whom
the silent snow had woven a spotless veil.
    I could no longer maintain my constrained attitude of prayer. The air of
the alcove intoxicated me, that febrile perfume of half-faded roses
penetrated my very brain, and I commenced to pace restlessly up