Inquisition never pronounces the final doom of its prisoners. In general much time is suffered to elapse without their being questioned; but Ambrosio’s trial had been hastened on account of a solemn Auto da Fe which would take place in a few days, and in which the inquisitors meant this distinguished culprit to perform a part, and give a striking testimony of their vigilance.
The abbot was not merely accused of rape and murder; the crime of sorcery was laid to his charge, as well as to Matilda’s. She had been seized as an accomplice in Antonia’s assassination. On searching her cell, various suspicious books and instruments were found, which justified the accusation brought against her. To criminate the monk, the constellated mirror was produced, which Matilda had accidentally left in his chamber. The strange figures engraved upon it caught the attention of Don Ramirez, while searching the abbot’s cell; in consequence, he carried it away with him. It was shewn to the Grand Inquisitor, who, having considered it for some time, took off a small golden cross which hung at his girdle, and laid it upon the mirror. Instantly a loud noise was heard, resembling a clap of thunder, and the steel shivered into a thousand pieces. This circumstance confirmed the suspicion of the monk’s having dealt in magic. It was even supposed, that his former influence over the minds of the people was entirely to be ascribed to witchcraft.
Determined to make him confess not only the crimes which he had committed, but those also of which he was innocent, the inquisitors began their examination. Though dreading the tortures as he dreaded death, which would consign him to eternal torments, the abbot asserted his purity in a voice bold and resolute. Matilda followed his example, but spoke with fear and trembling. Having in vain exhorted him to confess, the inquisitors ordered the monk to be put to the question. The decree was immediately executed. Ambrosio suffered the most excruciating pangs that ever were invented by human cruelty. Yet so dreadful is death, when guilt accompanies it, that he had sufficient fortitude to persist in his disavowal. His agonies were redoubled in consequence; nor was he released till, fainting from excess of pain, insensibility rescued him from the hands of his tormentors.
Matilda was next ordered to the torture; but, terrified by the sight of the friar’s sufferings, her courage totally deserted her. She sank upon her knees, acknowledged her corresponding with infernal spirits, and that she had witnessed the monk’s assassination of Antonia; but as to the crime of sorcery, she declared herself the sole criminal, and Ambrosio perfectly innocent. The latter assertion met with no credit. The abbot had recovered his senses in time to hear the confession of his accomplice: but he was too much enfeebled by what he had already undergone, to be capable at that time of sustaining new torments. He was commanded back to his cell, but first informed that as soon as he had gained strength sufficient he must prepare himself for a second examination. The inquisitors hoped that he would then be less hardened and obstinate. To Matilda it was announced, that she must expiate her crime in fire on the approaching Auto da Fe. All her tears and entreaties could procure no mitigation of her doom, and she was dragged by force from the hall of trial.
Returned to his dungeon, the sufferings of Ambrosio’s body were far more supportable than those of his mind. His dislocated limbs, the nails torn from his hands and feet, and his fingers mashed and broken by the pressure of screws, were far surpassed in anguish by the agitation of his soul, and vehemence of his terrors. He saw, that guilty or innocent his judges were bent upon condemning him. The remembrance of what his denial had already cost him terrified him at the idea of being again applied to the question, and almost engaged him to confess his crimes. Then again the consequences of his confession flashed before him, and rendered him once more irresolute. His death would be inevitable, and that a death the most dreadful. He had listened to Matilda’s doom, and doubted not that a similar was reserved for him. He shuddered at the approaching Auto da Fe, at the idea of perishing in flames, and only escaping from endurable torments to pass into others more subtile and everlasting! With affright did he bend his mind’s eye on the space beyond the grave; nor could hide from himself how justly he ought to dread Heaven’s vengeance. In this labyrinth of terrors, fain would he have taken his refuge in the gloom of atheism; fain would he have denied the soul’s immortality; have persuaded himself that, when his eyes once closed, they would never more open, and that the same moment would annihilate his soul and body. Even this resource was refused to him. To permit his being blind to the fallacy of this belief, his knowledge was too extensive, his understanding too solid and just. He could not help feeling the existence of a God. Those truths, once his comfort, now presented themselves before him in the clearest light; but they only served to drive him to distraction. They destroyed his ill-grounded hopes of escaping punishment; and, dispelled by the irresistible brightness of truth and conviction, philosophy’s deceitful vapours faded away like a dream.
In anguish almost too great for mortal frame to bear, he expected the time when he was again to be examined. He busied himself in planning ineffectual schemes for escaping both present and future punishment. Of the first there was no possibility; of the second despair made him neglect the only means. While Reason forced him to acknowledge a God’s existence, Conscience made him doubt the infinity of his goodness. He disbelieved that a sinner like him could find mercy. He had not been deceived into error: ignorance could furnish him with no excuse. He had seen vice in her true colours. Before he committed his crimes, he had computed every scruple of their weight, and yet he had committed them.
“Pardon?” he would cry in an access of phrensy: “Oh! there can be none for me!”
Persuaded of this, instead of humbling himself in penitence, of deploring his guilt, and employing his few remaining hours in deprecating Heaven’s wrath, he abandoned himself to the transports of desperate rage; he sorrowed for the punishment of his crimes, not their commission; and exhaled his bosom’s anguish in idle sighs, in vain lamentations, in blasphemy and despair. As the few beams of day which pierced through the bars of his prison-window gradually disappeared, and their place was supplied by the pale and glimmering lamp, he felt his terrors redouble, and his ideas become more gloomy, more solemn, more despondent. He dreaded the approach of sleep. No sooner did his eyes close, wearied with tears and watching, than the dreadful visions seemed to be realised on, which his mind had dwelt during the day. He found himself in sulphurous realms and burning caverns, surrounded by fiends appointed his tormentors, and who drove him through a variety of tortures, each of which was more dreadful than the former. Amidst these dismal scenes wandered the ghosts of Elvira and her daughter. They reproached him with their deaths, recounted his crimes to the d?mons, and urged them to inflict torments of cruelty yet more refined. Such were the pictures which floated before his eyes in sleep: they vanished not till his repose was disturbed by excess of agony. Then would he start from the ground on which he had stretched himself, his brows running down with cold sweat, his eyes wild and phrensied; and he only exchanged the terrible certainty for surmises scarcely more supportable. He paced his dungeon with disordered steps; he gazed with terror upon the surrounding darkness, and often did he cry,
“Oh! fearful is night to the guilty!”
The day of his second examination was at hand. He had been compelled to swallow cordials, whose virtues were calculated to restore his bodily strength, and enable him to support the question longer. On the night preceding this dreaded day, his fears for the morrow permitted him not to sleep. His terrors were so violent as nearly to annihilate his mental powers. He sat like one stupefied near the table on which his lamp was burning dimly. Despair chained up his faculties in idiotism, and he remained for some hours unable to speak or move, or indeed to think.
“Look up, Ambrosio!” said a voice in accents well known to him.
The monk started, and raised his melancholy eyes. Matilda stood before him. She had quitted her religious habit. She now wore a female dress, at once elegant and splendid; a profusion of diamonds blazed upon her robes, and her hair was confined by a coronet of roses. In her right hand she held a small book: a lively expression of pleasure beamed upon her countenance—but still it was mingled with a wild imperious majesty, which inspired the monk with awe, and repressed in some measure his transports at seeing her.
“You here, Matilda?” he at length exclaimed: “How have you gained entrance? Where are your chains? What means this magnificence, and the joy which sparkles in your eyes? Have our judges relented? Is there a chance of my escaping? Answer me for pity, and tell me what I have to hope or fear.”
“Ambrosio!” she replied with an air of commanding dignity: “I have baffled the Inquisition’s fury. I am free: a few moments will place kingdoms between these dungeons and me; yet I purchase my liberty at a dear, at a dreadful price! Dare you pay the same, Ambrosio? Dare you spring without fear over the bounds which separate men from angels?—You are silent—You look upon me with eyes of suspicion and alarm—I read your thoughts, and confess their justice. Yes, Ambrosio, I have sacrificed all for life and liberty. I am no longer a candidate for Heaven! I have renounced God’s service, and am enlisted beneath the banners of his foes. The deed is past recall; yet, were it in my power to go back, I would not. Oh! my friend, to expire in such torments! to die amidst curses and execrations! to bear the insults of an exasperated mob! to be exposed to all the mortifications of shame and infamy! who can reflect without horror on such a doom? Let me then exult in my exchange. I have sold distant and
