The Monk

earnestly. His curiosity was fully slaked, his ambition amply gratified. He gave laws to the elements; he could reverse the order of nature; his eye read the mandates of futurity, and the infernal spirits were submissive to his commands. Why shrink you from me? I understand that enquiring look. Your suspicions are right, though your terrors are unfounded. My guardian concealed not from me his most precious acquisition. Yet, had I never seen you, I should never have exerted my power. Like you I shuddered at the thoughts of magic: like you I had formed a terrible idea of the consequences of raising a daemon. To preserve that life which your love had taught me to prize, I had recourse to means which I trembled at employing. You remember that night which I passed in St. Clare’s sepulchre? Then was it that, surrounded by mouldering bodies, I dared to perform those mystic rites which summoned to my aid a fallen angel. Judge what must have been my joy at discovering that my terrors were imaginary: I saw the daemon obedient to my orders, I saw him trembling at my frown, and found that, instead of selling my soul to a master, my courage had purchased for myself a slave.”

“Rash Matilda! What have you done? You have doomed yourself to endless perdition; you have bartered for momentary power eternal happiness! If on witchcraft depends the fruition of my desires, I renounce your aid most absolutely. The consequences are too horrible: I dote upon Antonia, but am not so blinded by lust as to sacrifice for her enjoyment my existence both in this world and the next.”

“Ridiculous prejudices! Oh! blush, Ambrosio, blush at being subjected to their dominion. Where is the risk of accepting my offers? What should induce my persuading you to this step, except the wish of restoring you to happiness and quiet. If there is danger, it must fall upon me: it is I who invoke the ministry of the spirits; mine therefore will be the crime, and yours the profit. But danger there is none: the enemy of mankind is my slave, not my sovereign. Is there no difference between giving and receiving laws, between serving and commanding? Awake from your idle dreams, Ambrosio! Throw from you these terrors so ill-suited to a soul like yours; leave them for common men, and dare to be happy! Accompany me this night to St. Clare’s sepulchre, witness my incantations, and Antonia is your own.”

“To obtain her by such means I neither can, nor will. Cease then to persuade me, for I dare not employ hell’s agency.”

“You dare not? How have you deceived me! That mind which I esteemed so great and valiant, proves to be feeble, puerile, and grovelling, a slave to vulgar errors, and weaker than a woman’s.”

“What? Though conscious of the danger, wilfully shall I expose myself to the seducer’s arts? Shall I renounce forever my title to salvation? Shall my eyes seek a sight which I know will blast them? No, no, Matilda; I will not ally myself with God’s enemy.”

“Are you then God’s friend at present? Have you not broken your engagements with him, renounced his service, and abandoned yourself to the impulse of your passions? Are you not planning the destruction of innocence, the ruin of a creature whom he formed in the mould of angels? If not of daemons, whose aid would you invoke to forward this laudable design? Will the seraphims protect it, conduct Antonia to your arms, and sanction with their ministry your illicit pleasures? Absurd! But I am not deceived, Ambrosio! It is not virtue which makes you reject my offer: you would accept it, but you dare not. ’Tis not the crime which holds your hand, but the punishment; ’tis not respect for God which restrains you, but the terror of his vengeance! Fain would you offend him in secret, but you tremble to profess yourself his foe. Now shame on the coward soul, which wants the courage either to be a firm friend or open enemy!”

“To look upon guilt with horror, Matilda, is in itself a merit: in this respect I glory to confess myself a coward. Though my passions have made me deviate from her laws, I still feel in my heart an innate love of virtue. But it ill becomes you to tax me with my perjury: you, who first seduced me to violate my vows; you, who first roused my sleeping vices, made me feel the weight of religion’s chains, and bad me be convinced that guilt had pleasures. Yet though my principles have yielded to the force of temperament, I still have sufficient grace to shudder at sorcery, and avoid a crime so monstrous, so unpardonable!”

“Unpardonable, say you? Where then is your constant boast of the almighty’s infinite mercy? Has he of late set bounds to it? Receives he no longer a sinner with joy? You injure him, Ambrosio; you will always have time to repent, and he have goodness to forgive. Afford him a glorious opportunity to exert that goodness: the greater your crime, the greater his merit in pardoning. Away then with these childish scruples: be persuaded to your good, and follow me to the sepulchre.”

“Oh! cease, Matilda! That scoffing tone, that bold and impious language, is horrible in every mouth, but most so in a woman’s. Let us drop a conversation which excites no other sentiments than horror and disgust. I will not follow you to the sepulchre, or accept the services of your infernal agents. Antonia shall be mine, but mine by human means.”

“Then yours she will never be! You are banished her presence; her mother has opened her eyes to your designs, and she is now upon her guard against them. Nay more, she loves another. A youth of distinguished merit possesses her heart, and unless you interfere, a few days will make her his bride. This intelligence was brought me by my invisible servants, to whom I had recourse on first