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 dæmons, 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 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.”