The Monk, Page 41

  Here Agnes ceased; and the marquis replied to her address in terms equally sincere and affectionate. Lorenzo expressed his satisfaction at the prospect of being so closely connected with a man for whom he had ever entertained the highest esteem. The Pope’s bull had fully and effectually released Agnes from her religious engagements. The marriage was therefore celebrated as soon as the needful preparations had been made: for the marquis wished to have the ceremony performed with all possible splendour and publicity. This being over, and the bride having received the compliments of Madrid, she departed with Don Raymond for his castle in Andalusia. Lorenzo accompanied them, as did also the marchioness de Villa-Franca and her lovely daughter. It is needless to say that Theodore was of the party, and would be impossible to describe his joy at his master’s marriage. Previous to his departure the marquis, to atone in some measure for his past neglect, made some enquiries relative to Elvira. Finding that she, as well as her daughter, had received many services from Leonella and Jacintha, he shewed his respect to the memory of his sister-in-law by making the two women handsome presents. Lorenzo followed his example. Leonella was highly flattered by the attentions of noblemen so distinguished, and Jacintha blessed the hour on which her house was bewitched.

  On her side, Agnes failed not to reward her convent friends. The worthy Mother St. Ursula, to whom she owed her liberty, was named, at her request, superintendant of “the Ladies of Charity.” This was one of the best and most opulent societies throughout Spain. Bertha and Cornelia, not choosing to quit their friend, were appointed to principal charges in the same establishment. As to the nuns who had aided the domina in persecuting Agnes; Camilla, being confined by illness to her bed, had perished in the flames which consumed St. Clare’s convent. Mariana, Alix, and Violante, as well as two more, had fallen victims to the popular rage. The three others who had in council supported the domina’s sentence, were severely reprimanded, and banished to religious houses in obscure and distant provinces. Here they languished away a few years, ashamed of their former weakness, and shunned by their companions with aversion and contempt.

  Nor was the fidelity of Flora permitted to go unrewarded. Her wishes being consulted, she declared herself impatient to revisit her native land. In consequence, a passage was procured for her to Cuba, where she arrived in safety, loaded with the presents of Raymond and Lorenzo.

  The debts of gratitude discharged, Agnes was at liberty to pursue her favourite plan. Lodged in the same house, Lorenzo and Virginia were eternally together. The more he saw of her, the more was he convinced of her merit. On her part, she laid herself out to please; and not to succeed was for her impossible. Lorenzo witnessed with admiration her beautiful person, elegant manners, innumerable talents, and sweet disposition. He was also much flattered by her prejudice in his favour, which she had not sufficient art to conceal. However, his sentiments partook not of that ardent character which had marked his affection for Antonia. The image of that lovely and unfortunate girl still lived in his heart, and baffled all Virginia’s effort to displace it. Still, when the duke proposed to him the match, which he wished so earnestly to take place, his nephew did not reject the offer. The urgent supplications of his friends, and the lady’s merit, conquered his repugnance to entering into new engagements. He proposed himself to the marquis de Villa-Franca, and was accepted with joy and gratitude. Virginia became his wife, nor did she ever give him cause to repent his choice. His esteem increased for her daily. Her unremitted endeavours to please him could not but succeed. His affection assumed stronger and warmer colours. Antonia’s image was gradually effaced from his bosom, and Virginia became sole mistress of that heart, which she well deserved to possess without a partner.

  The remaining years of Raymond and Agnes, of Lorenzo and Virginia, were happy as can be those allotted to mortals, born to be the prey of grief, and sport of disappointment. The exquisite sorrows with which they had been afflicted, made them think lightly of every succeeding woe. They had felt the sharpest darts in misfortune’s quiver. Those which remained, appeared blunt in comparison. Having weathered fate’s heaviest storms, they looked calmly upon its terrors: or, if ever they felt affliction’s casual gales, they seemed to them gentle as zephyrs which breathe over summer-seas.

  CHAP. XII.

  ——He was a fell despightful fiend:

  Hell holds none worse in baleful bower below:

  By pride, and wit, and rage, and rancor keened:

  Of man, alike if good or bad, the foe.

  THOMSON.

  On the day following Antonia’s death, all Madrid was a scene of consternation and amazement. An archer who had witnessed the adventure in the sepulchre, had indiscreetly related the circumstances of the murder: he had also named the perpetrator. The confusion was without example, which this intelligence raised among the devotees. Most of them disbelieved it, and went themselves to the abbey to ascertain the fact. Anxious to avoid the shame to which their superior’s ill conduct exposed the whole brotherhood, the monks assured the visitors, that Ambrosio was prevented from receiving them as usual by nothing but illness. This attempt was unsuccessful. The same excuse being repeated day after day, the archer’s story gradually obtained confidence. His partisans abandoned him: no one entertained a doubt of his guilt: and they who before had been the warmest in his praise, were now the most vociferous in his condemnation.

  While his innocence or guilt was debated in Madrid with the utmost acrimony, Ambrosio was a prey to the pangs of conscious villany, and the terrors of punishment impending over him. When he looked back to the eminence on which he had lately stood, universally honoured and respected, at peace with the world and with himself, scarcely could he believe that he was indeed the culprit, whose crimes and whose fate he trembled to consider. But a few weeks had elapsed, since he was pure and virtuous, courted by the wisest and noblest in Madrid, and regarded by the people with a reverence that approached idolatry. He now saw himself stained with the most loathed and monstrous sins, the object of universal execration, a prisoner of the Holy Office, and probably doomed to perish in tortures the most severe. He could not hope to deceive his judges: the proofs of his guilt were too strong. His being in the sepulchre at so late an hour, his confusion at the discovery, the dagger which in his first alarm he owned had been concealed by him, and the blood which had spirted upon his habit from Antonia’s wound, sufficiently marked him out for the assassin. He waited with agony for the day of examination. He had no resource to comfort him in his distress. Religion could not inspire him with fortitude. If he read the books of morality which were put into his hands, he saw in them nothing but the enormity of his offences. If he attempted to pray, he recollected that he deserved not Heaven’s protection, and believed his crimes so monstrous as to exceed even God’s infinite goodness. For every other sinner he thought there might be hope, but for him there could be none. Shuddering at the past, anguished by the present, and dreading the future, thus passed he the few days preceding that which was marked for his trial.

  That day arrived. At nine in the morning his prison-door was unlocked; and his gaoler entering, commanded him to follow him. He obeyed with trembling. He was conducted into a spacious hall hung with black cloth. At the table sat three grave stern-looking men, also habited in black: one was the Grand Inquisitor, whom the importance of this cause had induced to examine into it himself. At a smaller table at a little distance sat the secretary, provided with all necessary implements for writing. Ambrosio was beckoned to advance, and take his station at the lower end of the table. As his eye glanced downwards, he perceived various iron instruments lying scattered upon the floor. Their forms were unknown to him, but apprehension immediately guessed them to be engines of torture. He turned pale, and with difficulty prevented himself from sinking upon the ground.

  Profound silence prevailed, except when the inquisitors whispered a few words among themselves mysteriously. Near an hour passed away, and with every second of it Ambrosio’s fears grew more poignant.
At length a small door, opposite to that by which he had entered the hall, grated heavily upon its hinges. An officer appeared and was immediately followed by the beautiful Matilda. Her hair hung about her face wildly: her cheeks were pale, and her eyes sunk and hollow. She threw a melancholy look upon Ambrosio: he replied by one of aversion and reproach. She was placed opposite to him. A bell then sounded thrice. It was the signal for opening the court; and the inquisitors entered upon their office.

  In these trials neither the accusation is mentioned, nor the name of the accuser. The prisoners are only asked, whether they will confess. If they reply, that having no crime, they can make no confession, they are put to the torture without delay. This is repeated at intervals, either till the suspected avow themselves culpable, or the perseverance of the examinants is worn out and exhausted: but without a direct acknowledgment of their guilt, the Inquisition never pronounces the final doom of its prisoners. In general much time is suffered to elapse without their being questioned; but Ambrosio’s trial had been hastened on account of a solemn Auto da Fé which would take place in a few days, and in which the inquisitors meant this distinguished culprit to perform a part, and give a striking testimony of their vigilance.

  The abbot was not merely accused of rape and murder; the crime of sorcery was laid to his charge, as well as to Matilda’s. She had been seized as an accomplice in Antonia’s assassination. On searching her cell, various suspicious books and instruments were found, which justified the accusation brought against her. To criminate the monk, the constellated mirror was produced, which Matilda had accidentally left in his chamber. The strange figures engraved upon it caught the attention of Don Ramirez, while searching the abbot’s cell; in consequence, he carried it away with him. It was shewn to the Grand Inquisitor, who, having considered it for some time, took off a small golden cross which hung at his girdle, and laid it upon the mirror. Instantly a loud noise was heard, resembling a clap of thunder, and the steel shivered into a thousand pieces. This circumstance confirmed the suspicion of the monk’s having dealt in magic. It was even supposed, that his former influence over the minds of the people was entirely to be ascribed to witchcraft.

  Determined to make him confess not only the crimes which he had committed, but those also of which he was innocent, the inquisitors began their examination. Though dreading the tortures as he dreaded death, which would consign him to eternal torments, the abbot asserted his purity in a voice bold and resolute. Matilda followed his example, but spoke with fear and trembling. Having in vain exhorted him to confess, the inquisitors ordered the monk to be put to the question. The decree was immediately executed. Ambrosio suffered the most excruciating pangs that ever were invented by human cruelty. Yet so dreadful is death, when guilt accompanies it, that he had sufficient fortitude to persist in his disavowal. His agonies were redoubled in consequence; nor was he released till, fainting from excess of pain, insensibility rescued him from the hands of his tormentors.

  Matilda was next ordered to the torture; but, terrified by the sight of the friar’s sufferings, her courage totally deserted her. She sank upon her knees, acknowledged her corresponding with infernal spirits, and that she had witnessed the monk’s assassination of Antonia; but as to the crime of sorcery, she declared herself the sole criminal, and Ambrosio perfectly innocent. The latter assertion met with no credit. The abbot had recovered his senses in time to hear the confession of his accomplice: but he was too much enfeebled by what he had already undergone, to be capable at that time of sustaining new torments. He was commanded back to his cell, but first informed that as soon as he had gained strength sufficient he must prepare himself for a second examination. The inquisitors hoped that he would then be less hardened and obstinate. To Matilda it was announced, that she must expiate her crime in fire on the approaching Auto da Fé. All her tears and entreaties could procure no mitigation of her doom, and she was dragged by force from the hall of trial.

  Returned to his dungeon, the sufferings of Ambrosio’s body were far more supportable than those of his mind. His dislocated limbs, the nails torn from his hands and feet, and his fingers mashed and broken by the pressure of screws, were far surpassed in anguish by the agitation of his soul, and vehemence of his terrors. He saw, that guilty or innocent his judges were bent upon condemning him. The remembrance of what his denial had already cost him terrified him at the idea of being again applied to the question, and almost engaged him to confess his crimes. Then again the consequences of his confession flashed before him, and rendered him once more irresolute. His death would be inevitable, and that a death the most dreadful. He had listened to Matilda’s doom, and doubted not that a similar was reserved for him. He shuddered at the approaching Auto da Fé, at the idea of perishing in flames, and only escaping from endurable torments to pass into others more subtile and everlasting! With affright did he bend his mind’s eye on the space beyond the grave; nor could hide from himself how justly he ought to dread Heaven’s vengeance. In this labyrinth of terrors, fain would he have taken his refuge in the gloom of atheism; fain would he have denied the soul’s immortality; have persuaded himself that, when his eyes once closed, they would never more open, and that the same moment would annihilate his soul and body. Even this resource was refused to him. To permit his being blind to the fallacy of this belief, his knowledge was too extensive, his understanding too solid and just. He could not help feeling the existence of a God. Those truths, once his comfort, now presented themselves before him in the clearest light; but they only served to drive him to distraction. They destroyed his ill-grounded hopes of escaping punishment; and, dispelled by the irresistible brightness of truth and conviction, philosophy’s deceitful vapours faded away like a dream.

  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.