Clarimonde, Voluptuous Vampires and Perfumed Port with Chocolate

Ritratto di Giovane Donna, Henry Fuseli, 1781

What better way to celebrate the lost souls of Halloween than a darkly romantic vampire story?

Clarimonde, (La Morte Amoureuse) by Theophile Gautier is a rich playing field for the romantic imagination.  Written in 1836, it is not the first exploration of the vampire legend but it is one of the most compelling for its intricate pas de deux between reality and disturbed obsession.  Navigating these ever-mutable planes quickens your pulse and feeds your imagination.

When Lucy Raubertas, at Indieperfumes asked me to join a stellar convocation of perfumers to create perfumes (and in my case a drink) inspired by a voluptuous tale of desperate passion, how could I refuse?  It’s a tale I could not help but be drawn to since I love the idea of vampires and have done since I was a child. Reading this gave me an excuse (as if I need one) to find out a little more about vampires.

I read that the word vampire comes from the Serbian word vampir and that it was not mentioned in the West until the early 18^th century when Russian and Eastern European stories and superstitions began to circulate (the word first came up in a 1734 travelogue ––one wonders if the opening of Russia by Peter the Great had something to do with the spreading of the myths??). 

At a certain point in the 18^th century there was a veritable plague of imaginary vampire attacks that began in East Prussia and led to graveyards being ripped apart in search of the demons, lots of garlic, strange herbs and staking.

John Polidori (1795-1821)

It is widely acknowledged that the first to tackle the Vampire archetype in western culture was John Polidori (Byron’s handsome physician). Except –– that is not completely true. His may have been the first short story on the subject but the idea had been swirling around Europe for a century or more and many a creative soul had already been attracted to the myth (there were earlier German vampire poems like The Vampire by Ossenfelder in 1748 and Lenore by Bürger in 1773).

Until Bram Stoker’s Dracula  demolished the competition in 1897, Polidori’s The Vampyre enjoyed an enduring popularity, inspiring many later works including Stokers’ and a penny-dreadful called Varney the Vampire  in the 1840’s (that I read many years ago… it was dreadful). All the Twilights and Angels and True Bloods of today have some of the genes of Polidori's work.

Polidori wrote The Vampyre during the now legendary holiday with Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (soon to be Mary Shelley) at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland in June, 1816.

Chichester Canal JMW Turner

1816 was no ordinary year.  It was called “the year without a summer” because of massive volcanic eruptions from Mt. Tambora in Indonesia in 1815.  To a frightened, superstitious world, this would have seemed apocalyptic, with psychedelic skies (that Turner captured so brilliantly), a sulphuric fog (properly called a stratospheric sulfate aerosol veil) and catastrophic crop failures.  No wonder it sent a group of poets over to the darkside that fateful June.

Early edition of Frankenstein

After reading aloud from a new translation (from the German) of one of the current hits of the day called Tales of the Dead, Byron encouraged the company to write their own dark tales…. The most famous of which is of course, Frankenstein.  Polidori based his vampire tale on a fragment of a story by Byron with the vampire named Augustus Darvell. Although Byron had mentioned the phenomenon before, it had not been fully explored.

Byron became interested in the vampire myth after hearing of it on his grand tour in 1809-10 and Lord Byron himself touched on the subject in a note following his poem The Giaour: A Fragment of a Turkish Tale in 1812:

“The Vampire superstition is still general in the Levant. Honest Tournefort tells a long story about these 'Vroucolachas', as he calls them. The Romaic term is 'Vardoulacha'. I recollect a whole family being terrified by the scream of a child, which they imagined must proceed from such a visitation. The Greeks never mention the word without horror. I find that 'Broucolokas' is an old legitimate Hellenic appellation –– at least is so applied to Arsenius, who, according to the Greeks, was after his death animated by the Devil. The moderns, however, use the word I mention. The stories told in Hungary and Greece of these foul feeders are singular, and some of them most incredibly attested.”

Lord Byron

Polidori’s vampire is a man named Lord Ruthven (a name first used by Byron’s ex, Lady Caroline Lamb, for a thinly disguised Byron character in her 1816 Gothic novel Glenarvon).  As Frankenstein was inspired by Mary Wollstoncraft’s vision of her Shelley, so the character of Lord Ruthven was 

again inspired by Byron in Polidori’s tale.

Fact and fiction sometimes share the same bed, do they not??

But what of Clarimonde?  The vampire Clarimonde was born of the mind and heart of Theophile Gautier –– a poet, painter and novelist.  He spoke of the “sovereignty of the beautiful” in his work and perfected a poetic technique for recording his impressions of works of art, seamlessly joining two of his passions.  He loved weaving realism and fantasy together in his stories and believed in the existence of the unexplainable and mysterious.  This belief system is fully displayed in Clarimonde where the visual and sensual are worked masterfully.

In his story, Aria Marcella he declared, “No one is truly dead until they are no longer loved.”  A perfect sentiment for the immortal vampire (or for their lovers)! Can that not be said for the immortal characters of literature that are re-animated in every new reader’s imagination?

Henry Fuseli

 Gautier’s use of the female vampire as his heroine was inspired by Goethe’s 1797 female vampire story, The Bride of Corinth.  The poem predates both Byron and Polidori (it is not known if they had read Goethe’s poem).

I think the fascination with demon women is in our genes since tales of demonic women date back to the dawn of history.  They were often serpent hybrids, out to suck or squeeze the life out of their mostly male conquests (although children were also mentioned as favorite victims of the creatures).  They were always beautiful and desirable –– with a terrifying aspect (the serpent side of them was often not immediately perceptible –– only hinted at –– like something you see out of the corner of your eye but can’t quite believe). 

Goethe’s veiled bride was no serpent… she was a dead thing that killed her bridegroom by feeding upon him too deeply.  It was said of Goethe’s poem “An awful and undeniable horror breathes throughout it.  In the slow measured rhythm of the verse, and the pathetic simplicity of the diction, there is a solemnity and a stirring spell which chains the feelings like a deep mysterious strain of music.”  No wonder it inspired Gautier!

Topsell History of 4-Footed Beasts, 1607

Although 17^th c Edward Topsell paints a nightmarish, “Island of Dr Moreau” portrait of the Lamia or Lilith (ancient vampire cousins), other later interpretations are ravishing beauties.

Lamia, Herbert James Draper 1909

Lilith, John Collier, 1892

I think Gautier was a little in love with his own creation, channeling Keats and Coleridge’s demon women with his words.  What makes his story different is that his vampire is a loving creature, not a monster.  There are no horrors to be found in her declaration to Romuald:

“I loved thee long ere I saw thee, dear Romuald, and sought thee everywhere.  Thou wast my dream…”

You can feel that spirit as lover/priest Romuald draws a portrait of Clarimonde:

“She was rather tall, with a form and bearing of a goddess.  Her hair, of a soft blond hue, was parted over her temples in 2 rivers of rippling gold; she seemed a diademed queen.  Her forehead, bluish-white in its transparency, extended its calm breadth above the arches of her eyebrows, which by a strange singularity were almost black and admirably relieved the effect of see-green eyes of unsustainable vivacity and brilliancy. What eyes!  With a single flash they could have decided a man’s destiny.

… she elevated her head with the undulating grace of a startled serpent or peacock”

Listen to Keats in his poem  Lamia (1819) as he describes his succubus:

She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,

Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;

Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,

Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr’d;

And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,

Dissolv’d, or brighter shone, or interwreathed

Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries—

So rainbow-sided, touch’d with miseries,

She seem’d, at once, some penanced lady elf,

Some demon’s mistress, or the demon’s self.

Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire

Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne’s tiar:

Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet!

… or Coleridge in Cristabel (1797)  writing of his succubus, Geraldine:

There she sees a damsel bright,

Dressed in a silken robe of white,

That shadowy in the moonlight shone :

The neck that made that white robe wan,

Her stately neck, and arms were bare;

Her blue-veined feet unsandal'd were;

And wildly glittered here and there

The gems entangled in her hair.

I guess, 'twas frightful there to see

A lady so richly clad as she--

Beautiful exceedingly!

As a woman, I have always found it interesting that a man’s excuse for being utterly obsessed by a woman is that she is a demon possessing him, not that his obsession comes from his own mind!  Perish the thought!

The Shepherd’s Dream Henry Fusili, 1793

In our hero’s case, Romuald is a young priest whose piety is forever poisoned by his vampire Clarimonde.

“Yes I have loved as none in the world ever loved–– with an insensate and furious passion-so violent that I am astonished it did not cause my heart to burst asunder.  Ah what nights ­– what nights!”

It would be hard to go back to a lonely life of chastity and poverty in the priesthood after such a pronouncement.

Clarimonde is beautiful and desirable beyond imagining and young Romuald is lost from the moment she gazes upon him –– but did she?

Vampire, Edvard Munch,  1893-4

 The great thing about the tale is that we are never sure whether this ever happened or if it is all in his imagination.  Is she in fact a succubus that he has invented –– or a real incarnation of temptation? 

Could it be his blood/imagination is the animator of this vampire who only exists in his mind as his eternal torturer?

“The error or a single moment is enough to make one lose eternity. Lose eternity 

the end”

For poor Romuald, this apparition has remained with him as real as memory can be. For the readers of the tale... it is for us to choose what to believe... or not.

Countess de Castiglione photo by Pierre-Louise Pierson, 1860's

Now that we have learned a little about vampires in literature, what dark obsessions can be called up with a scent?

How can you not be inspired to attach perfume and scent to the story as a way of fixing it in our Clarimonde group’s shared experience. Our memory of scent is perhaps our strongest fixative, isn’t it?

Who does not remember a lover with a fragrance… a perfume, a smell of wood fires that brings us back like a wormhole to moments in our history.

When I write about history, the question that always comes to my mind is, how did they eat?  If I can’t find specifics, I imagine what it would be and create it to make the history come alive for me.

I imagine doing the same thing with perfumes.  As artists in this field often do… an inspiration creates a scent or a person requests a special elixir and the perfumer tries to make something that is their perception of the person –– their scented incarnation or manifestation.

In this case it is a fiction, a mood, a melody.  The mention of perfume in Clarimonde is brief yet potent:

“In lieu of the fetid and cadaverous odours which I had been accustomed to breathe during such funereal vigils, a languorous vapour of Oriental perfume––I know not what amorous odour of woman––softly floated through the tepid air….

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 and down the chamber, pausing at each turn before the bier to contemplate the graceful corpse lying beneath the transparency of its shroud.”

For this, I decided food would not be appropriate, since she “… swallowed the blood in little mouthfuls, slowly and carefully like a connoisseur”.  I wanted something darkly perfumed, warm like blood with an air of the ancient. I chose an old port as my base because it has always reminded me of old leather.  Next rose–– to honor the half-faded roses Gautier describes.  For Orient perfumes I used musk, ambergris, oud wood.  I finished the brew with nutmeg and chocolate for their affinity to the port. 

The result?  It is dark and mysterious.  The fragrance lingers in your mouth long after the glass has been emptied.  Like a great vampire story –– or the memory of a great love.

 Liqueur de Clarimonde

1 cup of vintage port

2 t honey (depending on your taste, the port and the chocolate you may want more

2 drops Aftelier Rose essence or 2 t rosewater

pinch of nutmeg

2 T chocolate, chopped fine

1 pea size piece of ambergris from Ambergris Co. NZ, grated (optional)

1 piece of oud (2 “x ½”) crushed (optional)

4 grains of Siberian Musk in alcohol (optional)


* I got my oud and musk from Siti House of Perfumes

Warm the port and honey and add the rest of the ingredients.  Stir till chocolate is dissolved.  Allow it to sit for a few hours or until the following day.

For a simpler version, leave out the ambergris, oud and musk.  This drink was inspired by a port-flavored chocolate truffle that I had long ago in Paris and loved. I added the rare and exotic hippocras flavors to make the drink feel like Clarimonde… but know the ingredients are not easy to find.  You will love the simpler version too!

Re-heat, strain and serve.

Very Old Transylvanian decanter

PS~  As some of you know, I have been on a sabbatical from my day job in the film business as a production designer.  I am doing a little project for a great director that he has written.  Not much money, great cast and a big dinner scene.  I was wondering if any NYC area bloggers would like to  contribute a beautiful dish to the effort for screen credit?   Email me if this interests any of you.  This would happen somewhere between the 8th and the 19th of November.  Details to follow.