uncertain happiness for present and secure. I have preserved a life, which otherwise I had lost in torture; and I have obtained the power of procuring every bliss which can make that life delicious! The infernal spirits obey me as their sovereign; by their aid shall my days be passed in every refinement of luxury and voluptuousness. I will enjoy unrestrained the gratification of my senses; every passion shall be indulged even to satiety; then will I bid my servants invent new pleasures, to revive and stimulate my glutted appetites! I go impatient to exercise my newly- gained dominion. I pant to be at liberty. Nothing should hold me one moment longer in this abhorred abode, but the hope of persuading you to follow my example. Ambrosio, I still love you: our mutual guilt and danger have rendered you dearer to me than ever, and I would fain save you from impending destruction. Summon then your resolution to your aid, and renounce for immediate and certain benefits the hopes of a salvation difficult to obtain, and perhaps altogether erroneous. Shake off the prejudice of vulgar souls; abandon a God who has abandoned you, and raise yourself to the level of superior beings!”
She paused for the monk’s reply: he shuddered while he gave it.
“Matilda!” he said, after a long silence, in a low and unsteady voice: “What price gave you for liberty?”
She answered him firm and dauntless.
“Ambrosio, it was my soul!”
“Wretched woman, what have you done! Pass but a few years, and how dreadful will be your sufferings!”
“Weak man, pass but this night, and how dreadful will be your own! Do you remember what you have already endured? To-morrow you must bear torments doubly exquisite. Do you remember the horrors of a fiery punishment? In two days you must be led a victim to the stake! What then will become of you? Still dare you hope for pardon? Still are you beguiled with visions of salvation? Think upon your crimes! Think upon your lust, your perjury, inhumanity, and hypocrisy! Think upon the innocent blood which cries to the throne of God for vengeance! and then hope for mercy! Then dream of heaven, and sigh for worlds of light, and realms of peace and pleasure! Absurd! Open your eyes, Ambrosio, and be prudent. Hell is your lot; you are doomed to eternal perdition; nought lies beyond your grave, but a gulph of devouring flames. And will you then speed towards that hell? Will you clasp that perdition in your arms ere ’Tis needful? Will you plunge into those flames while you still have the power to shun them? ’Tis a madman’s action. No, no, Ambrosio, let us for a while fly from divine vengeance. Be advised by me, purchase by one moment’s courage the bliss of years; enjoy the present, and forget that a future lags behind.”
“Matilda, your counsels are dangerous; I dare not, I will not follow them. I must not give up my claim to salvation. Monstrous are my crimes; but God is merciful, and I will not despair of pardon.”
“Is such your resolution? I have no more to say. I speed to joy and liberty, and abandon you to death and eternal torments!”
“Yet stay one moment, Matilda! You command the infernal d?mons; you can force open these prison doors; you can release me from these chains which weigh me down. Save me, I conjure you, and bear me from these fearful abodes!”
“You ask the only boon beyond my power to bestow. I am forbidden to assist a churchman and a partisan of God. Renounce those titles, and command me.”
“I will not sell my soul to perdition.”
“Persist in your obstinacy till you find yourself at the stake: then will you repent your error, and sigh for escape when the moment is gone by. I quit you.——Yet ere the hour of death arrives, should wisdom enlighten you, listen to the means of repairing your present fault. I leave with you this book. Read the four first lines of the 7th page backwards. The spirit, whom you have already once beheld, will immediately appear to you. If you are wise, we shall meet again; if not, farewell for ever!”
She let the book fall upon the ground. A cloud of blue fire wrapped itself round her. She waved her hand to Ambrosio, and disappeared. The momentary glare which the flames poured through the dungeon, on dissipating suddenly, seemed to have increased its natural gloom. The solitary lamp scarcely gave light sufficient to guide the monk to a chair. He threw himself into his seat, folded his arms, and, leaning his head upon the table, sank into reflections perplexing and unconnected.
He was still in this attitude, when the opening of the prison door roused him from his stupor. He was summoned to appear before the Grand Inquisitor. He rose, and followed his gaoler with painful steps. He was led into the same hall, placed before the same examiners, and was again interrogated whether he would confess. He replied as before, that, having no crimes, he could acknowledge none. But when the executioners prepared to put him to the question, when he saw the engines of torture, and remembered the pangs which they had already inflicted, his resolution failed him entirely. Forgetting the consequences, and only anxious to escape the terrors of the present moment, he made an ample confession. He disclosed every circumstance of his guilt, and owned not merely the crimes with which he was charged, but those of which he had never been suspected. Being interrogated as to Matilda’s flight, which had created much confusion, he confessed that she had sold herself to Satan, and that she was indebted to sorcery for her escape. He still assured his judges, that for his own part he had never entered into any compact with the infernal spirits; but the threat of being tortured made him declare himself to be a sorcerer and heretic, and whatever other title the inquisitors chose to fix upon him. In consequence of this avowal, his sentence was immediately pronounced. He was ordered to prepare himself to perish in the Auto da Fe, which was to be solemnized at twelve o’clock that night. This hour was chosen, from the idea, that, the horror of the flames being heightened by the gloom of midnight, the execution would have a greater effect upon the mind of the people.
Ambrosio, rather dead than alive, was left alone in his dungeon. The moment in which this terrible decree was pronounced, had nearly proved that of his dissolution. He looked forward to the morrow with despair, and his terrors increased with the approach of midnight. Sometimes he was buried in gloomy silence; at others, he raved with delirious passion, wrung his hands, and cursed the hour when he first beheld the light. In one of these moments his eye rested upon Matilda’s mysterious gift. His transports of rage were instantly suspended. He looked earnestly at the book; he took it up, but immediately threw it from him with horror. He walked rapidly up and down his dungeon—then stopped, and again fixed his eyes on the spot where the book had fallen. He reflected, that here at least was a resource from the fate which he dreaded. He stooped, and took it up a second time. He remained for some time trembling and irresolute; he longed to try the charm, yet feared its consequences. The recollection of his sentence at length fixed his indecision. He opened the volume; but his agitation was so great, that he at first sought in vain for the page mentioned by Matilda. Ashamed of himself, he called all his courage to his aid. He turned to the seventh leaf: he began to read it aloud; but his eyes frequently wandered from the book, while he anxiously cast them round in search of the spirit, whom he wished, yet dreaded to behold. Still he persisted in his design; and with a voice unassured, and frequent interruptions, he contrived to finish the four first lines of the page.
They were in a language whose import was totally unknown to him. Scarce had he pronounced the last word, when the effects of the charm were evident. A loud burst of thunder was heard, the prison shook to its very foundations, a blaze of lightning flashed through the cell, and in the next moment, borne upon sulphurous whirlwinds, Lucifer stood before him a second time. But he came not as when at Matilda’s summons he borrowed the seraph’s form to deceive Ambrosio. He appeared in all that ugliness which since his fall from heaven had been his portion. His blasted limbs still bore marks of the Almighty’s thunder. A swarthy darkness spread itself over his gigantic form: his hands and feet were armed with long talons. Fury glared in his eyes, which might have struck the bravest heart with terror. Over his huge shoulders waved two enormous sable wings: and his hair was supplied by living snakes, which twined themselves round his brows with frightful hissings. In one hand he held a roll of parchment, and in the other an iron pen. Still the lightning flashed around him, and the thunder with repeated bursts seemed to announce the dissolution of Nature.
Terrified at an apparition so different from what he had expected, Ambrosio remained gazing upon the fiend, deprived of the power of utterance. The thunder had ceased to roll: universal silence reigned through the dungeon.
“For what am I summoned hither?” said the d?mon, in a voice which
At the sound Nature seemed to tremble. A violent earthquake rocked the ground, accompanied by a fresh burst of thunder, louder and more appalling than the first.
Ambrosio was long unable to answer the d?mon’s demand.
“I am condemned to die,” he said with a faint voice, his blood running cold while he gazed upon his dreadful visitor. “Save me! bear me from hence!”
