“I Dressed Myself Hurriedly, And She Handed Me The Articles Of Apparel Herself One By One, Bursting

“I dressed myself hurriedly, and she handed me the articles of apparel herself one by one, bursting into laughter from time to time at my awkwardness, as she explained to me the use of a garment when I had made a mistake. She hurriedly arranged my hair, and this done, held up before me a little pocket-mirror of Venetian crystal, rimmed with silver filigree-work, and playfully asked: ‘How dost find thyself now? Wilt engage me for thy valet de chambre?’”

—

La Morte Amoureuse by Théophile Gautier (trans. Lafcadio Hearn)

This scene is honestly adorable, and made me think of how unique Clarimonde is for a vampire character from this era in that she actually has a sense of humor. 

By my count, Lord Ruthven laughs exactly three times over the course of The Vampyre: When Aubrey asks if he has any intention of marrying the woman he plans to seduce, when he’s killing Ianthe, and when he gets Aubrey to agree to The Oath™. It’s always ominous, malicious, or both, and it’s invariably in a situation where he’s enjoying hurting someone or having power over them. It’s never in a scenario where the audience would be laughing along with him, at something we’d find funny or endearing too. And that’s what you mostly tend to find in early literary vampires: even the more sympathetic ones (like E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Aurelia) are mostly just serious and brooding, without much by way of humor. 

By contrast, Clarimonde bursting out laughing because her sheltered dork boyfriend has no idea how fancy clothes work is… dare I say it, refreshingly human. There’s nothing malicious or malevolent in it, it doesn’t seem like she’s, idk, gloating in her power over him or something, she genuinely just seems to be giggling over him being an awkward dork. The same goes for the way she teases Romuald: It’s genuinely cute, and there’s a humanity and mutuality there that’s completely absent in a lot of early vampire/human dynamics (and later ones too - compare it to how Dracula’s Brides talk over Jonathan but never to him, for example). 

That doesn’t mean there’s no sense of foreboding to the story or to Clarimonde, I just think it’s an aspect that brings more complexity to the picture, and to this relationship.