Theophile Gautier

Clarimonde Theophile Gautier

Clarimonde is a supernatural short story written by Théophile Gautier and first published in 1836. It tells the story of a priest named Romuald who falls in love with Clarimonde, a beautiful woman who turns out to be a vampire. The story opens with an elderly priest, Romuald, answering the question if he has ever loved. He answers that he has but describes this occurrence as a bewitchment to which he fell. Then, he recounts the story of his first love, Clarimonde. On the day of his Ordination, when he was a young man, he sees a beautiful woman in the church. He hears a woman's voice promising to love him and to make him happier than he would be in Paradise. Conflicted between 'love at first sight' and his religious beliefs, he finishes the ceremony despite her entreaties. On his way back to the seminary, he receives a card, reading: "Clarimonde, at the Palace Concini". Clarimonde is a young woman of rare beauty, and Romuald is captured by her beauty and is taken away from his life as a priest to live in Venice with the vampire, who survives by drinking his blood as he sleeps.