is way slipped into my hand
a little pocket-book with gold-embroidered corners, at the same time
giving me a sign to hide it. I concealed it in my sleeve, and there kept
it until I found myself alone in my cell. Then I opened the clasp. There
were only two leaves within, bearing the words, 'Clarimonde. At the
Concini Palace.' So little acquainted was I at that time with the things
of this world that I had never heard of Clarimonde, celebrated as she
was, and I had no idea as to where the Concini Palace was situated. I
hazarded a thousand conjectures, each more extravagant than the last;
but, in truth, I cared little whether she were a great lady or a
courtesan, so that I could but see her once more.

My love, although the growth of a single hour, had taken imperishable
root. I did not even dream of attempting to tear it up, so fully was I
convinced such a thing would be impossible. That woman had completely
taken possession of me. One look from her had sufficed to change my very
nature. She had breathed her will into my life, and I no longer lived
in myself, but in her and for her. I gave myself up to a thousand
extravagancies. I kissed the place upon my hand which she had touched,
and I repeated her name over and over again for hours in succession. I
only needed to close my eyes in order to see her distinctly as though
she were actually present; and I reiterated to myself the words she had
uttered in my ear at the church porch: 'Unhappy man! Unhappy man! What
hast thou done?' I comprehended at last the full horror of my situation,
and the funereal and awful restraints of the state into which I had just
entered became clearly revealed to me. To be a priest!--that is, to be
chaste, to never love, to observe no distinction of sex or age, to turn
from the sight of all beauty, to put out one's own eyes, to hide for
ever crouching in the chill shadows of some church or cloister, to visit
none but the dying, to watch by unknown corpses, and ever bear about
with one the black soutane as a garb of mourning for oneself, so that
your very dress might serve as a pall for your coffin.

And I felt life rising within me like a subterranean lake, expanding
and overflowing; my blood leaped fiercely through my arteries; my
long-restrained youth suddenly burst into active being, like the aloe
which blooms but once in a hundred years, and then bursts into blossom
with a clap of thunder.

What could I do in order to see Clarimonde once m