'For your sake, Fatal Beauty!' murmured the Monk, while gazing on
his devoted prey; 'For your sake, have I committed this murder,
and sold myself to eternal tortures. Now you are in my power:
The produce of my guilt will at least be mine. Hope not that
your prayers breathed in tones of unequalled melody, your bright
eyes filled with tears, and your hands lifted in supplication, as
when seeking in penitence the Virgin's pardon; Hope not that
your moving innocence, your beauteous grief, or all your
suppliant arts shall ransom you from my embraces. Before the
break of day, mine you must, and mine you shall be!'
He lifted her still motionless from the Tomb: He seated himself
upon a bank of Stone, and supporting her in his arms, watched
impatiently for the symptoms of returning animation. Scarcely
could He command his passions sufficiently, to restrain himself
from enjoying her while yet insensible. His natural lust was
increased in ardour by the difficulties which had opposed his
satisfying it: As also by his long abstinence from Woman, since
from the moment of resigning her claim to his love, Matilda had
exiled him from her arms for ever.
'I am no Prostitute, Ambrosio;' Had She told him, when in the
fullness of his lust He demanded her favours with more than usual
earnestness; 'I am now no more than your Friend, and will not be
your Mistress. Cease then to solicit my complying with desires,
which insult me. While your heart was mine, I gloried in your
embraces: Those happy times are past: My person is become
indifferent to you, and 'tis necessity, not love, which makes you
seek my enjoyment. I cannot yield to a request so humiliating
to my pride.'
Suddenly deprived of pleasures, the use of which had made them an
absolute want, the Monk felt this restraint severely. Naturally
addicted to the gratification of the senses, in the full vigour
of manhood, and heat of blood, He had suffered his temperament to
acquire such ascendency that his lust was become madness. Of
his fondness for Antonia, none but the grosser particles
remained: He longed for the possession of her person; and even
the gloom of the vault, the surrounding silence, and the
resistance which He expected from her, seemed to give a fresh
edge to his fierce and unbridled desires.
Gradually He felt the bosom which rested against his, glow with
returning warmth. Her heart throbbed again; Her blood flowed
swifter, and her lips moved. At length She opened her eyes, but
still opprest and bewildered by the effects of the strong opiate,
She closed them again immediately. Ambrosio watched her
narrowly, nor permitted a movement to escape him. Perceiving
that She was fully restored to existence, He caught her in
rapture to his bosom, and closely pressed his lips to hers. The
suddenness of his action sufficed to dissipate the fumes which
obscured Antonia's reason. She hastily raised herself, and cast
a wild look round her. The strange Images which presented
themselves on every side contributed to confuse her. She put her
hand to her head, as if to settle her disordered imagination. At
length She took it away, and threw her eyes through the dungeon a
second time. They fixed upon the Abbot's face.
'Where am I?' She said abruptly. 'How came I here? Where is my
Mother? Methought, I saw her! Oh! a dream, a dreadful dreadful
dream told me . . . . . . But where am I? Let me go! I cannot
stay here!'
She attempted to rise, but the Monk prevented her.
'Be calm, lovely Antonia!' He replied; 'No danger is near you:
Confide in my protection. Why do you gaze on me so earnestly?
Do you not know me? Not know your Friend? Ambrosio?'
'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 surprize. He caught her hand, forced her upon his
knee, and gazing upon her with gloting 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 for ever 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 m
e 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. He turned away from her; or if his
eyes rested upon her figure involuntarily, it was only to dart
upon her looks of hate. The Unfortunate had fainted ere the
completion of her disgrace: She only recovered life to be
sensible of her misfortune. She remained stretched upon the earth
in silent despair: The tears chased each other slowly down her
cheeks, and her bosom heaved with frequent sobs. Oppressed with
grief, She continued for some time in this state of torpidity.
At length She rose with difficulty, and dragging her feeble steps
towards the door, prepared to quit the dungeon.
The sound of her footsteps rouzed the Monk from his sullen
apathy. Starting from the Tomb against which He reclined, while
his eyes wandered over the images of corruption contained in it,
He pursued the Victim of his brutality, and soon overtook her.
He seized her by the arm, and violently forced her back into the
dungeon.
'Whither go you?' He cried in a stern voice; 'Return this
instant!'
Antonia trembled at the fury of his countenance.
'What, would you more?' She said with timidity: 'Is not my ruin
compleated? Am I not undone, undone for ever? Is not your
cruelty contented, or have I yet more to suffer? Let me depart.
Let me return to my home, and weep unrestrained my shame and my
affliction!'
'Return to your home?' repeated the Monk, with bitter and
contemptuous mockery; Then suddenly his eyes flaming with
passion, 'What? That you may denounce me to the world? That
you may proclaim me an Hypocrite, a Ravisher, a Betrayer, a
Monster of cruelty, lust, and ingratitude? No, no, no! I know
well the whole weight of my offences; Well that your complaints
would be too just, and my crimes too notorious! You shall not
from hence to tell Madrid that I am a Villain; that my conscience
is loaded with sins which make me despair of Heaven's pardon.
Wretched Girl, you must stay here with me! Here amidst these
lonely Tombs, these images of Death, these rotting loathsome
corrupted bodies! Here shall you stay, and witness my
sufferings; witness what it is to die in the horrors of
despondency, and breathe the last groan in blasphemy and curses!
And who am I to thank for this? What seduced me into crimes,
whose bare remembrance makes me shudder? Fatal Witch! was it not
thy beauty? Have you not plunged my soul into infamy? Have you
not made me a perjured Hypocrite, a Ravisher, an Assassin! Nay,
at this moment, does not that angel look bid me despair of God's
forgiveness? Oh! when I stand before his judgment-throne, that
look will suffice to damn me! You will tell my Judge that you
were happy, till I saw you; that you were innocent, till I
polluted you! You will come with those tearful eyes, those
cheeks pale and ghastly, those hands lifted in supplication, as
when you sought from me that mercy which I gave not! Then will
my perdition be certain! Then will come your Mother's Ghost, and
hurl me down into the dwellings of Fiends, and flames, and
Furies, and everlasting torments! And 'tis you, who will accuse
me! 'Tis you, who will cause my eternal anguish! You, wretched
Girl! You! You!'
As He thundered out these words, He violently grasped Antonia's
arm, and spurned the earth with delirious fury.
Supposing his brain to be turned, Antonia sank in terror upon her
knees: She lifted up her hands, and her voice almost died away,
ere She could give it utterance.
'Spare me! Spare me!' She murmured with difficulty.
'Silence!' cried the Friar madly, and dashed her upon the
ground----
He quitted her, and paced the dungeon with a wild and disordered
air. His eyes rolled fearfully: Antonia trembled whenever She
met their gaze. He seemed to meditate on something horrible, and
She gave up all hopes of escaping from the Sepulchre with life.
Yet in harbouring this idea, She did him injustice. Amidst the
horror and disgust to which his soul was a prey, pity for his
Victim still held a place in it. The storm of passion once over,
He would have given worlds had He possest them, to have restored
to her that innocence of which his unbridled lust had deprived
her. Of the desires which had urged him to the crime, no trace
was left in his bosom: The wealth of India would not have
tempted him to a second enjoyment of her person. His nature
seeme
d to revolt at the very idea, and fain would He have wiped
from his memory the scene which had just past. As his gloomy
rage abated, in proportion did his compassion augment for
Antonia. He stopped, and would have spoken to her words of
comfort; But He knew not from whence to draw them, and remained
gazing upon her with mournful wildness. Her situation seemed so
hopeless, so woebegone, as to baffle mortal power to relieve
her. What could He do for her? Her peace of mind was lost, her
honour irreparably ruined. She was cut off for ever from
society, nor dared He give her back to it. He was conscious
that were She to appear in the world again, his guilt would be
revealed, and his punishment inevitable. To one so laden with
crimes, Death came armed with double terrors. Yet should He
restore Antonia to light, and stand the chance of her betraying
him, how miserable a prospect would present itself before her.
She could never hope to be creditably established; She would be
marked with infamy, and condemned to sorrow and solitude for the
remainder of her existence. What was the alternative? A
resolution far more terrible for Antonia, but which at least
would insure the Abbot's safety. He determined to leave the
world persuaded of her death, and to retain her a captive in this
gloomy prison: There He proposed to visit her every night, to
bring her food, to profess his penitence, and mingle his tears
with hers. The Monk felt that this resolution was unjust and
cruel; but it was his only means to prevent Antonia from
publishing his guilt and her own infamy. Should He release her,
He could not depend upon her silence: His offence was too
flagrant to permit his hoping for her forgiveness. Besides, her
reappearing would excite universal curiosity, and the violence
of her affliction would prevent her from concealing its cause.
He determined therefore, that Antonia should remain a Prisoner in
the dungeon.
He approached her with confusion painted on his countenance. He
raised her from the ground. Her hand trembled, as He took it,
and He dropped it again as if He had touched a Serpent. Nature
seemed to recoil at the touch. He felt himself at once repulsed
from and attracted towards her, yet could account for neither
sentiment. There was something in her look which penetrated him
with horror; and though his understanding was still ignorant of
The Monk - A Romance Page 43
