“Ambrosio? My friend? Oh! yes, yes; I remember … But why am I here? Who has brought me? Why are you with me? Oh! Flora bad me beware. … ! Here are nothing but graves, and tombs, and skeletons! This place frightens me! Good Ambrosio take me away from it, for it recalls my fearful dream! Methought I was dead, and laid in my grave! Good Ambrosio, take me from hence. Will you not? Oh! will you not? Do not look on me thus! Your flaming eyes terrify me! Spare me, father! Oh! spare me for God’s sake!”
“Why these terrors, Antonia?” rejoined the abbot, folding her in his arms, and covering her bosom with kisses which she in vain struggled to avoid: “What fear you from me, from one who adores you? What matters it where you are? This sepulchre seems to me love’s bower; this gloom is the friendly night of mystery which he spreads over our delights! Such do I think it, and such must my Antonia. Yes, my sweet girl! Yes! Your veins shall glow with fire which circles in mine, and my transports shall be doubled by your sharing them!”
While he spoke thus, he repeated his embraces, and permitted himself the most indecent liberties. Even Antonia’s ignorance was not proof against the freedom of his behaviour. She was sensible of her danger, forced herself from his arms, and her shroud being her only garment, she wrapped it closely round her.
“Unhand me, father!” she cried, her honest indignation tempered by alarm at her unprotected position. “Why have you brought me to this place? Its appearance freezes me with horror! Convey me from hence, if you have the least sense of pity and humanity! Let me return to the house which I have quitted I know not how; but stay here one moment longer, I neither will, or ought.”
Though the monk was somewhat startled by the resolute tone in which this speech was delivered, it produced upon him no other effect than surprise. He caught her hand, forced her upon his knee, and gazing upon her with gloating eyes, he thus replied to her.
“Compose yourself, Antonia. Resistance is unavailing, and I need disavow my passion for you no longer. You are imagined dead: society is forever lost to you. I possess you here alone; you are absolutely in my power, and I burn with desires which I must either gratify or die: but I would owe my happiness to yourself. My lovely girl! My adorable Antonia! Let me instruct you in joys to which you are still a stranger, and teach you to feel those pleasures in my arms which I must soon enjoy in yours. Nay, this struggling is childish,” he continued, seeing her repell his caresses, and endeavour to escape from his grasp; “No aid is near: neither heaven or earth shall save you from my embraces. Yet why reject pleasures so sweet, so rapturous? No one observes us: our loves will be a secret to all the world: love and opportunity invite your giving loose to your passions. Yield to them, my Antonia! Yield to them, my lovely girl! Throw your arms thus fondly round me; join your lips thus closely to mine! Amidst all her gifts, has nature denied her most precious, the sensibility of pleasure? Oh! impossible! Every feature, look, and motion declares you formed to bless, and to be blessed yourself! Turn not on me those supplicating eyes: consult your own charms; they will tell you that I am proof against entreaty. Can I relinquish these limbs so white, so soft, so delicate; these swelling breasts, round, full, and elastic! These lips fraught with such inexhaustible sweetness? Can I relinquish these treasures, and leave them to another’s enjoyment? No, Antonia; never, never! I swear it by this kiss, and this! and this!”
With every moment the friar’s passion became more ardent, and Antonia’s terror more intense. She struggled to disengage herself from his arms: her exertions were unsuccessful; and finding that Ambrosio’s conduct became still freer, she shrieked for assistance with all her strength. The aspect of the vault, the pale glimmering of the lamp, the surrounding obscurity, the sight of the tomb, and the objects of mortality which met her eyes on either side, were ill-calculated to inspire her with those emotions by which the friar was agitated. Even his caresses terrified her from their fury, and created no other sentiment than fear. On the contrary, her alarm, her evident disgust, and incessant opposition, seemed only to inflame the monk’s desires, and supply his brutality with additional strength. Antonia’s shrieks were unheard: yet she continued them, nor abandoned her endeavours to escape, till exhausted and out of breath she sank from his arms upon her knees, and once more had recourse to prayers and supplications. This attempt had no better success than the former. On the contrary, taking advantage of her situation, the ravisher threw himself by her side: he clasped her to his bosom almost lifeless with terror, and faint with struggling. He stifled her cries with kisses, treated her with the rudeness of an unprincipled barbarian, proceeded from freedom to freedom, and in the violence of his lustful delirium, wounded and bruised her tender limbs. Heedless of her tears, cries and entreaties, he gradually made himself master of her person, and desisted not from his prey, till he had accomplished his crime and the dishonour of Antonia.
Scarcely had he succeeded in his design than he shuddered at himself and the means by which it was effected. The very excess of his former eagerness to possess Antonia now contributed to inspire him with disgust; and a secret impulse made him feel how base and unmanly was the crime which he had just committed. He started hastily from her arms. She, who so lately had been the object of his adoration, now raised no other sentiment in his heart than aversion and rage.
