With every instant Ambrosio’s amazement increased. Another hour elapsed, after which the same light again appeared, and was lost again as suddenly. It was accompanied by a strain of sweet but solemn music, which, as it stole through the vaults below, inspired the monk with mingled delight and terror. It had not long been hushed, when he heard Matilda’s steps upon the stair-case. She ascended from the cavern; the most lively joy animated her beautiful features.
“Did you see any thing?” she asked.
“Twice I saw a column of light flash up the stair-case.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing.”
“The morning is on the point of breaking, let us retire to the abbey, lest day-light should betray us.”
With a light step she hastened from the burying-ground. She regained her cell, and the curious abbot still accompanied her. She closed the door, and disembarrassed herself of her lamp and basket.
“I have succeeded!” she cried, throwing herself upon his bosom; “succeeded beyond my fondest hopes! I shall live, Ambrosio, shall live for you! the step, which I shuddered at taking, proves to me a source of joys inexpressible! Oh! that I dared communicate those joys to you! Oh! that I were permitted to share with you my power, and raise you as high above the level of your sex, as one bold deed has exalted me above mine!”
“And what prevents you, Matilda?” interrupted the friar, “Why is your business in the cavern made a secret? Do you think me undeserving of your confidence? Matilda, I must doubt the truth of your affection, while you have joys in which I am forbidden to share.”
“You reproach me with injustice; I grieve sincerely that I am obliged to conceal from you my happiness: but I am not to blame; the fault lies not in me, but in yourself, my Ambrosio. You are still too much the monk, your mind is enslaved by the prejudices of education; and superstition might make you shudder at the idea of that which experience has taught me to prize and value. At present you are unfit to be trusted with a secret of such importance; but the strength of your judgment, and the curiosity which I rejoice to see sparkling in your eyes, makes me hope that you will one day deserve my confidence. Till that period arrives, restrain your impatience. Remember that you have given me your solemn oath, never to enquire into this night’s adventures. I insist upon your keeping this oath; for, though,” she added smiling, while she sealed his lips with a wanton kiss, “though I forgive your breaking your vows to heaven, I expect you to keep your vows to me.”
The friar returned the embrace, which had set his blood on fire. The luxurious and unbounded excesses of the former night were renewed, and they separated not till the bell rang for matins.
The same pleasures were frequently repeated. The monks rejoiced in the feigned Rosario’s unexpected recovery, and none of them suspected his real sex. The abbot possessed his mistress in tranquillity, and, perceiving his frailty unsuspected, abandoned himself to his passions in full security. Shame and remorse no longer tormented him. Frequent repetitions made him familiar with sin, and his bosom became proof against the stings of conscience. In these sentiments he was encouraged by Matilda; but she soon was aware that she had satiated her lover by the unbounded freedom of her caresses. Her charms becoming accustomed to him, they ceased to excite the same desires which at first they had inspired. The delirium of passion being past, he had leisure to observe every trifling defect; where none were to be found, satiety made him fancy them. The monk was glutted with the fullness of pleasure. A week had scarcely elapsed, before he was wearied of his paramour: his warm constitution still made him seek in her arms the gratification of his lust. But when the moment of passion was over, he quitted her with disgust, and his humour, naturally inconstant, made him sigh impatiently for variety.
Possession, which cloys man, only increases the affection of women. Matilda with every succeeding day grew more attached to the friar. Since he had obtained her favours, he was become dearer to her than ever, and she felt grateful to him for the pleasures in which they had equally been sharers. Unfortunately as her passion grew ardent, Ambrosio’s grew cold; the very marks of her fondness excited his disgust, and its excess served to extinguish the flame which already burned but feebly in his bosom. Matilda could not but remark that her society seemed to him daily less agreeable; he was inattentive while she spoke; her musical talents, which she possessed in perfection, had lost the power of amusing him; or if he deigned to praise them, his compliments were evidently forced and cold. He no longer gazed upon her with affection, or applauded her sentiments with a lover’s partiality. This Matilda well perceived, and redoubled her efforts to revive those sentiments which he once had felt. She could not but fail, since he considered as importunities, the pains which she took to please him, and was disgusted by the very means which she used to recall the wanderer. Still, however, their illicit commerce continued; but it was clear that he was led to her arms, not by love, but the cravings of brutal appetite. His constitution made a woman necessary to him, and Matilda was the only one with whom he could indulge his passions safely. In spite of her beauty, he gazed upon every other female with more desire; but fearing that his hypocrisy should be made public, he confined his inclinations to his own breast.
It was by no means his nature to be timid: but his education had impressed his mind with fear so strongly, that apprehension was now become part of his character. Had his youth been passed in the world, he would have shown himself possessed of many brilliant and manly qualities. He was naturally enterprizing, firm, and fearless: he had a warrior’s heart, and he might have shone with splendour at the head of an army. There was no want of generosity in his nature: the wretched never failed to find in him a compassionate auditor: his abilities were quick and shining, and his judgment vast, solid, and decisive. With such qualifications he would have been an ornament to his country: that he possessed them he had given proofs in his earliest infancy, and his parents had beheld his dawning virtues with the fondest delight and admiration. Unfortunately, while yet a child, he was deprived of those parents. He fell into the power of a relation, whose only wish about him was never to hear of him more: for that purpose he gave him in charge to his friend, the former superior of the Capuchins. The abbot, a very monk, used all his endeavours to persuade the boy that happiness existed not without the walls of a convent. He succeeded fully. To deserve admittance into the order of St. Francis was Ambrosio’s highest ambition. His instructors carefully repressed those virtues, whose grandeur and disinterestedness were ill suited to the cloister. Instead of universal benevolence, he adopted a selfish partiality for his own particular establishment: he was taught to consider compassion for the errors of others as a crime of the blackest dye: the noble frankness of his temper was exchanged for servile humility; and in order to break his natural spirit, the monks terrified his young mind, by placing before him all the horrors with which superstition could furnish them: they painted to him the torments of the damned in colours the most dark, terrible and fantastic, and threatened him at the slightest fault with eternal perdition. No wonder that his imagination constantly dwelling upon these fearful objects should have rendered his character timid and apprehensive. Add to this, that his long absence from the great world, and total unacquaintance with the common dangers of life, made him form of them an idea far more dismal than the reality. While the monks were busied in rooting out his virtues, and narrowing his sentiments, they allowed every vice which had fallen to his share to arrive at full perfection. He was suffered to be proud, vain, ambitious, and disdainfuclass="underline" he was jealous of his equals, and despised all merit but his own: he was implacable when offended, and cruel in his revenge. Still in spite of the pains taken to pervert them, his natural good qualities would occasionally break through the gloom cast over them so carefully. At such times the contest for superiority between his real and acquired character was striking and unaccountable to those unacquainted with his original disposition. He pronounced the most severe sentences upon offenders, which the moment after compassion induced him to mitigate: he undertook the most daring enterprizes, which the fear of their consequences soon obliged him to abandon: his inborn genius darted a brilliant light upon subjects the most obscure; and almost instantaneously his superstition replunged them in darkness more profound than that from which they had just been rescued. His brother monks, regarding him as a superior being, remarked not this contradiction in their idol’s conduct. They were persuaded that what he did must be right, and supposed him to have good reasons for changing his resolutions. The fact was, that the different sentiments with which education and nature had inspired him, were combating in his bosom: it remained for his passions, which as yet no opportunity had called into play, to decide the victory. Unfortunately his passions were the very worst judges to whom he could possibly have applied. His monastic seclusion had till now been in his favour, since it gave him no room for discovering his bad qualities. The superiority of his talents raised him too far above his companions to permit his being jealous of them: his exemplary piety, persuasive eloquence, and pleasing manners had secured him universal esteem, and consequently he had no injuries to revenge: his ambition was justified by his acknowledged merit, and his pride considered as no more than proper confidence. He never saw, much less conversed with the other sex: he was ignorant of the pleasures in woman’s power to bestow; and if he read in the course of his studies