your seductions! What can now be done? How can my offence be expiated? What atonement can purchase the pardon of my crime? Wretched Matilda, you have destroyed my quiet for ever!”
“To me these reproaches, Ambrosio? to me, who have sacrificed for you the world’s pleasures, the luxury of wealth, the delicacy of sex, my friends, my fortune, and my fame? What have you lost which I preserved? Have
As she spoke, her eyes were filled with a delicious languor: her bosom panted: she twined her arms voluptuously round him, drew him towards her, and glued her lips to his. Ambrosio again raged with desire: the die was thrown: his vows were already broken: he had already committed the crime, and why should he refrain from enjoying its reward? He clasped her to his breast with redoubled ardour. No longer repressed by the sense of shame, he gave a loose to his intemperate appetites; while the fair wanton put every invention of lust in practice, every refinement in the art of pleasure, which might heighten the bliss of her possession, and render her lover’s transports still more exquisite. Ambrosio rioted in delights till then unknown to him. Swift fled the night, and the morning blushed to behold him still clasped in the embraces of Matilda.
Intoxicated with pleasure, the monk rose from the syren’s luxurious couch: he no longer reflected with shame upon his incontinence, or dreaded the vengeance of offended heaven: his only fear was lest death should rob him of enjoyments, for which his long fast had only given a keener edge to his appetite. Matilda was still under the influence of poison; and the voluptuous monk trembled less for his preserver’s life than his concubine’s. Deprived of her, he would not easily find another mistress with whom he could indulge his passions so fully, and so safely; he therefore pressed her with earnestness to use the means of preservation which she had declared to be in her possession.
“Yes!” replied Matilda; “since you have made me feel that life is valuable, I will rescue mine at any rate. No dangers shall appal me: I will look upon the consequences of my action boldly, nor shudder at the horrors which they present: I will think my sacrifice scarcely worthy to purchase your possession; and remember, that a moment passed in your arms in this world, o’erpays an age of punishment in the next. But before I take this step, Ambrosio, give me your solemn oath never to enquire by what means I shall preserve myself.”
He did so, in a manner the most binding.
“I thank you, my beloved. This precaution is necessary; for, though you know it not, you are under the command of vulgar prejudices. The business on which I must be employed this night might startle you, from its singularity, and lower me in your opinion. Tell me, are you possessed of the key of the low door on the western side of the garden?”
“The door which opens into the burying-ground common to us and the sisterhood of St. Clare? I have not the key, but can easily procure it.”
“You have only this to do. Admit me into the burying-ground at midnight. Watch while I descend into the vaults of St. Clare, lest some prying eye should observe my actions. Leave me there alone for an hour, and that life is safe which I dedicate to your pleasures. To prevent creating suspicion, do not visit me during the day. Remember the key, and that I expect you before twelve. Hark! I hear steps approaching! Leave me; I will pretend to sleep.”
The friar obeyed, and left the cell. As he opened the door, father Pablos made his appearance.
“I come,” said the latter, “to enquire after the health of my young patient.”
“Hush!” replied Ambrosio, laying his finger upon his lip; “speak softly; I am just come from him: he has fallen into a profound slumber, which doubtless will be of service to him. Do not disturb him at present, for he wishes to repose.”
Father Pablos obeyed, and, hearing the bell ring, accompanied the abbot to matins. Ambrosio felt embarrassed as he entered the chapel. Guilt was new to him, and he fancied that every eye could read the transactions of the night upon his countenance. He strove to pray: his bosom no longer glowed with devotion: his thoughts insensibly wandered to Matilda’s secret charms. But what he wanted in purity of heart, he supplied by exterior sanctity. The better to cloak his transgression, he redoubled his pretensions to the semblance of virtue, and never appeared more devoted to heaven than since he had broken through his engagements. Thus did he unconsciously add hypocrisy to perjury and incontinence: he had fallen into the latter errors from yielding to seduction almost irresistible: but he was now guilty of a voluntary fault, by endeavouring to conceal those into which another had betrayed him.
The matins concluded, Ambrosio retired to his cell. The pleasures which he had just tasted for the first time were still impressed upon his mind: his brain was bewildered, and presented a confused chaos of remorse, voluptuousness, inquietude, and fear: he looked back with regret to that peace of soul, that security of virtue, which till then had been his portion: he had indulged in excesses whose very idea, but four-and-twenty hours before, he had recoiled at with horror: he shuddered at reflecting that a trifling indiscretion on his part, or on Matilda’s, would overturn that fabric of reputation which it had cost him thirty years to erect, and render him the abhorrence of the people of whom he was then the idol. Conscience painted to him in glaring colours his perjury and weakness; apprehension magnified to him the horrors of punishment, and he already fancied himself in the prisons of the Inquisition. To these tormenting ideas succeeded Matilda’s beauty, and those delicious lessons, which once learnt can never be forgotten. A single glance thrown upon these reconciled him with himself: he considered the pleasures of the former night to have been purchased at an easy price by the sacrifice of innocence and honour. Their very remembrance filled his soul with ecstacy: he cursed his foolish vanity, which had induced him to waste in obscurity the bloom of life, ignorant of the blessings of love and woman: he determined, at all events, to continue his commerce with Matilda, and called every argument to his aid which might confirm his resolution: he asked himself, provided his irregularity was unknown, in what would his fault consist, and what consequences he had to apprehend? By adhering strictly to every rule of his order save chastity, he doubted not to retain the esteem of men, and even the protection of heaven: he trusted easily to be forgiven so slight and natural a deviation from his vows; but he forgot that, having pronounced those vows, incontinence, in laymen the most venial of errors, became in his person the most heinous of crimes.
Once decided upon his future conduct, his mind became more easy: he threw himself upon his bed, and strove by sleeping to recruit his strength, exhausted by his nocturnal excesses. He awoke refreshed, and eager for a repetition of his pleasures. Obedient to Matilda’s order, he visited not her cell during the day. Father Pablos mentioned in the refectory, that Rosario had at length been prevailed upon to follow his prescription; but that the medicine had not produced the slightest effect, and that he believed no mortal skill could rescue him from the grave. With this opinion the abbot agreed, and affected to lament the untimely fate of a youth whose talents had appeared so promising.
The night arrived. Ambrosio had taken care to procure from the porter the key of the low door opening into the cemetery. Furnished with this, when all was silent in the monastery, he quitted his cell, and hastened to Matilda’s. She had left her bed, and was dressed before his arrival.
“I have been expecting you with impatience,” said she; “my life depends upon these moments. Have you the key?”
“I have.”
“Away then to the garden. We have no time to lose. Follow me!”
She took a small covered basket from the table. Bearing this in one hand, and the lamp, which was flaming upon the hearth, in the other, she hastened from the cell. Ambrosio followed her. Both maintained a profound silence. She moved on with quick but cautious steps, passed through the cloisters, and reached the western side of the garden: her eyes flashed with a fire and wildness which impressed the monk at once with awe and horror. A determined desperate courage reigned upon her brow: she gave the lamp to Ambrosio; then taking from him the key, she unlocked the low door, and entered the cemetery. It was a vast and spacious square, planted with yew- trees; half of it belonged to the abbey, the other half was the property of the sisterhood of St. Clare, and was protected by a roof of stone: the division was marked by an iron railing, the wicket of which was generally left unlocked.
