sojourn with his
beloved is Venice, where they inhabit a gorgeous palace, and where
Romuald enters into all the follies and dissipations of the place. He is
unalterably faithful to Clarimonde, and she to him; and the time passes
in a perpetual delirium. But every night--as it now seems to him--he
finds himself once more a poor country priest, horrified at the misdeeds
of his other personality, and seeking to atone for them by prayer and
fasting and good works. Even in his Venetian moments he sometimes thinks
of Serapion's words, and at length he has especial reason to remember
them.

For some time Clarimonde's health had not been very good;
her complexion faded from day to day. The doctors who were
called in could not discover the disease, and after useless
prescriptions gave up the case. Day by day she grew paler
and colder, till she was nearly as white and as corpse-like
as on the famous night at the mysterious castle. I was in
despair at this wasting away, but she, though touched by my
sorrow, only smiled at me sweetly and sadly with the fatal
smile of those who feel their death approaching. One morning
I was sitting by her. In slicing some fruit it happened that
I cut my finger somewhat deeply. The blood flowed in crimson
streamlets, and some of it spurted on Clarimonde. Her eyes
brightened at once, and over her face there passed a look of
fierce joy which I had never before seen in her. She sprang
from the bed with catlike activity and pounced on the wound,
which she began to suck with an air of indescribable
delight, swallowing the blood in sips, slowly and carefully,
as an epicure tastes a costly vintage. Her eyelids were half
closed, and the pupils of her sea-green eyes flattened and
became oblong instead of round.... From time to time she
interrupted herself to kiss my hand; then she began again to
squeeze the edges of the wound with her lips in order to
draw from it a few more crimson drops. When she saw that the
blood ran no longer, she rose with bright and humid eyes,
rosier than a May morning, her cheeks full, her hands warm,
yet no longer parched, fairer in short than ever, and in
perfect health. "I shall not die! I shall not die!" she
said, clasping my neck in a frenzy of joy. "I can live long
and love you. My life is in yours, my very existence comes
fro