“But reflect, lady! reflect only for a moment on the impropriety of my harbouring a woman in the abbey, and that too a woman who confesses that she loves me. It must not be. The risk of your being discovered is too great; and I will not expose myself to so dangerous a temptation.”
“Temptation, say you? Forget that I am a woman, and it no longer exists: consider me only as a friend; as an unfortunate, whose happiness, whose life, depends upon your protection. Fear not, lest I should ever call to your remembrance, that love the most impetuous, the most unbounded, has induced me to disguise my sex; or that, instigated by desires, offensive to
your
vows and my own honour, I should endeavour to seduce you from the path of rectitude. No, Ambrosio! learn to know me better: I love you for your virtues: lose them, and with them you lose my affections. I look upon you as a saint: prove to me that you are no more than man, and I quit you with disgust. Is it then from me that you fear temptation? from me, in whom the world’s dazzling pleasures created no other sentiment than contempt? from me, whose attachment is grounded on your exemption from human frailty? Oh! dismiss such injurious apprehensions! think nobler of me; think nobler of yourself. I am incapable of seducing you to error; and surely your virtue is established on a basis too firm to be shaken by unwarranted desires. Ambrosio! dearest Ambrosio! drive me not from your presence; remember your promise, and authorise my stay.”
“Impossible, Matilda!
your
interest commands me to refuse your prayer, since I tremble for you, not for myself. After vanquishing the impetuous ebullitions of youth; after passing thirty years in mortification and penance, I might safely permit your stay, nor fear your inspiring me with warmer sentiments than pity: but to yourself, remaining in the abbey can produce none but fatal consequences. You will misconstrue my every word and action; you will seize every circumstance with avidity which encourages you to hope the return of your affection; insensibly, your passions will gain a superiority over your reason; and, far from being repressed by my presence, every moment which we pass together will only serve to irritate and excite them. Believe me, unhappy woman! you possess my sincere compassion. I am convinced that you have hitherto acted upon the purest motives; but though you are blind to the imprudence of your conduct, in me it would be culpable not to open your eyes. I feel that duty obliges my treating you with harshness; I must reject your prayer, and remove every shadow of hope which may aid to nourish sentiments so pernicious to your repose. Matilda, you must from hence to-morrow.”
“To-morrow, Ambrosio? to-morrow? Oh! surely you cannot mean it! you cannot resolve on driving me to despair! you cannot have the cruelty———”
“You have heard my decision, and it must be obeyed: the laws of our order forbid your stay: it would be perjury to conceal that a woman is within these walls, and my vows will oblige me to declare your story to the community. You must from hence. I pity you, but can do no more.”
He pronounced these words in a faint and trembling voice; then, rising from his seat, he would have hastened towards the monastery. Uttering a loud shriek, Matilda followed, and detained him.
“Stay yet one moment, Ambrosio! hear me yet speak one word!”
“I dare not listen. Release me: you know my resolution.”
“But one word! but one last word, and I have done!”
“Leave me. Your entreaties are in vain: you must from hence to-morrow.”
“Go then, barbarian! But this resource is still left me.”
As she said this, she suddenly drew a poniard. She rent open her garment, and placed the weapon’s point against her bosom.
“Father, I will never quit these walls alive.”
“Hold! hold, Matilda! what would you do?”
“You are determined, so am I: the moment that you leave me, I plunge this steel in my heart.”
“Holy St. Francis! Matilda, have you your senses? Do you know the consequences of your action? that suicide is the greatest of crimes? that you destroy your soul? that you lose your claim to salvation? that you prepare for yourself everlasting torments?”
“I care not, I care not,” she replied passionately: “either your hand guides me to paradise, or my own dooms me to perdition. Speak to me, Ambrosio! Tell me that you will conceal my story; that I shall remain your friend and your companion, or this poniard drinks my blood.”
As she uttered these last words, she lifted her arm, and made a motion as if to stab herself. The friar’s eyes followed with dread the course of the dagger. She had torn open her habit, and her bosom was half exposed. The weapon’s point rested upon her left breast: and, oh! that was such a breast! The moon-beams darting full upon it enabled the monk to observe its dazzling whiteness: his eye dwelt with insatiable avidity upon the beauteous orb: a sensation till then unknown filled his heart with a mixture of anxiety and delight; a raging fire shot through every limb; the blood boiled in his veins, and a thousand wild wishes bewildered his imagination.
“Hold!” he cried, in an hurried, faltering voice; “I can resist no longer! Stay then, enchantress! stay for my destruction!”
He said; and, rushing from the place, hastened towards the monastery: he regained his cell, and threw himself upon his couch, distracted, irresolute and confused.
He found it impossible for some time to arrange his ideas. The scene in which he had been engaged, had excited such a variety of sentiments in his bosom, that he was incapable of deciding which was predominant. He was irresolute what conduct he ought to hold with the disturber of his repose; he was conscious that prudence, religion, and propriety, necessitated his obliging her to quit the abbey: but, on the other hand, such powerful reasons authorised her stay, that he was but too much inclined to consent to her remaining. He could not avoid being flattered by Matilda’s declaration, and at reflecting that he had unconsciously vanquished an heart which had resisted the attacks of Spain’s noblest cavaliers. The manner in which he had gained her affections was also the most satisfactory to his vanity: he remembered the many happy hours which he had passed in Rosario’s society; and dreaded that void in his heart which parting with him would occasion. Besides all this, he considered, that as Matilda was wealthy, her favour might be of essential benefit to the abbey.
“And what do I risk,” said he to himself, “by authorizing her stay? May I not safely credit her assertions? Will it not be easy for me to forget her sex, and still consider her as my friend and my disciple? Surely her love is as pure as she describes: had it been the offspring of mere licentiousness, would she so long have concealed it in her own bosom? Would she not have employed some means to procure its gratification? She has done quite the contrary: she strove to keep me in ignorance of her sex; and nothing but the fear of detection, and my instances, would have compelled her to reveal the secret: she has observed the duties of religion not less strictly than myself: she has made no attempt to rouse my slumbering passions, nor has she ever conversed with me till this night on the subject of love. Had she been desirous to gain my affections, not my esteem, she would not have concealed from me her charms so carefully: at this very moment I have never seen her face; yet certainly that face must be lovely, and her person beautiful, to judge by her—by what I have seen.”
As this last idea passed through his imagination, a blush spread itself over his cheek. Alarmed at the sentiments which he was indulging, he betook himself to prayer: he started from his couch, knelt before the beautiful Madona, and entreated her assistance in stifling such culpable emotions: he then returned to his bed, and resigned himself to slumber.
He awoke heated and unrefreshed. During his sleep, his inflamed imagination had presented him with none but the most voluptuous objects. Matilda stood before him in his dreams, and his eyes again dwelt upon her naked breast; she repeated her protestations of eternal love, threw her arms round his neck, and loaded him with kisses: he returned them; he clasped her passionately to his bosom, and—the vision was dissolved. Sometimes his dreams presented the image of his favourite Madona, and he fancied that he was kneeling before her: as he offered up his vows to her, the eyes of the figure seemed to beam on him with inexpressible sweetness; he pressed his lips to hers, and found them warm: the animated form started from the canvas, embraced him affectionately, and his senses were unable to support delight so exquisite. Such were the scenes on which his thoughts were employed while sleeping: his unsatisfied desires placed before him the most lustful and provoking images, and he rioted in joys till then unknown to him.
He started from his couch, filled with confusion at the remembrance of his dreams: scarcely was he less ashamed when he reflected on his reasons of the former night, which induced him to authorise Matilda’s stay. The cloud was now dissipated which had obscured his judgment; he shuddered when he beheld his arguments blazoned in their proper colours, and found that he had been a slave to flattery, to avarice, and self-love. If in one hour’s conversation Matilda had produced a change so remarkable in his sentiments, what had he not to dread from her remaining in the abbey? Become sensible of his danger, awakened from his dream of confidence, he resolved to insist on her departing without delay: he began to feel that he was not proof against temptation; and that, however Matilda might restrain herself within the bounds of modesty, he was unable to contend with those passions from which he falsely thought himself exempted.
“Agnes! Agnes!” he exclaimed, while reflecting on his embarrassments, “I already feel thy curse!”
He quitted his cell, determined upon dismissing the feigned Rosario. He appeared at matins; but his thoughts were absent, and he paid them but little attention: his heart and brain were both of them filled with worldly objects, and he prayed without devotion. The service over, he descended into the garden; he bent his steps towards the same spot where on the preceding night he had made this embarrassing discovery: he doubted not that Matilda would seek him there. He was not deceived: she soon entered the hermitage, and approached the monk with a timid air. After a few minutes, during which both were silent, she appeared as if on the point of speaking; but the abbot, who during this time had been summoning up all his resolution, hastily interrupted her. Though still unconscious how extensive was its influence, he dreaded the melodious seduction of her voice.
“Seat yourself by my side, Matilda,” said he, assuming a look of firmness, though carefully avoiding the least mixture of severity; “listen to me patiently, and believe that, in what I shall say, I am not more influenced by my own interest than by yours; believe that I feel for you the warmest friendship, the truest compassion; and that you cannot feel more grieved than I do, when I declare to you that we must never meet again.”
“Ambrosio!” she cried, in a voice at once expressive both of surprise and of sorrow.
“Be calm, my friend! my Rosario! still let me call you by that name so dear to me: our separation is unavoidable; I blush to own how sensibly it affects me.—But yet it must be so; I feel myself incapable of treating you with indifference; and that very conviction obliges me to insist upon your departure. Matilda, you must stay here no longer.”
“Oh! where shall I now seek for probity? Disgusted with a perfidious world, in what happy region does Truth conceal herself? Father, I hoped that she resided here; I thought that your bosom had been her favourite shrine. And you too prove false? Oh God! and you too can betray me?”
“Matilda?”
“Yes, father, yes; ’Tis with justice that I reproach you. Oh! where are your promises? My noviciate is not expired, and yet will you compel me to quit the monastery? Can you have the heart to drive me from you? and have I not received your solemn oath to the contrary?”
“I will not compel you to quit the monastery; you have received my solemn oath to the contrary: but yet, when I throw myself upon your generosity; when I declare to you the embarrassments in which your presence involves me, will you not release me from that oath? Reflect upon the danger of a discovery; upon the opprobrium in which such an event would plunge me: reflect, that my honour and reputation are at stake; and that my peace of mind depends on your compliance. As yet, my heart is free; I shall separate from you with regret, but not with despair. Stay here, and a few weeks will sacrifice my happiness on the altar of your charms; you are but too interesting, too amiable! I should love you, I should doat on you! my bosom would become the prey of desires, which honour and my profession forbid me to gratify. If I resisted them, the impetuosity of my wishes unsatisfied would drive me to madness: if I yielded to the temptation, I should sacrifice to one moment of guilty pleasure, my reputation in this world, my salvation in the next. To you, then, I fly for defence against myself. Preserve me from losing the reward of thirty years of sufferings! preserve me from becoming the victim of remorse!
Your
heart has already felt the anguish of hopeless love: oh! then, if you really value me, spare mine that anguish! give me back my promise; fly from these walls. Go, and you bear with you my warmest prayers for your happiness, my friendship, my esteem, and admiration: stay, and you become to me the source of danger, of sufferings, of despair. Answer me, Matilda, what is your resolve?” She was silent.—“Will you not speak, Matilda? Will you not name your choice?”
“Cruel! cruel!” she exclaimed, wringing her hands in agony; “you know too well that you offer me no choice: you know too well that I can have no will but yours!”
“I was not then deceived. Matilda’s generosity equals my expectations.”
“Yes; I will prove the truth of my affection by submitting to a decree which cuts me to the very heart. Take back your promise. I will quit the monastery this very day. I have a relation, abbess of a convent in Estramadura: to her will I bend my steps, and shut myself from the world for ever. Yet tell me, father, shall I bear your good wishes with me to my solitude? Will you sometimes abstract your attention from heavenly objects to bestow a thought upon me?”