The Monk (50 page)
“Take it!” said the God-abandoned. “Now then save me! Snatch me from hence!”
“Hold! Do you freely and absolutely renounce your Creator and his Son?”
“I do! I do!”
“Do you make over your soul to me for ever?”
“For ever!”
“Without reserve or subterfuge? without future appeal to the divine mercy?”
The last chain fell from the door of the prison. The key was heard turning in the lock. Already the iron door grated heavily upon its rusty hinges——
“I am yours for ever, and irrevocably!” cried the monk wild with terror: “I abandon all claim to salvation. I own no power but yours. Hark! hark! they come! Oh! save me! bear me away!”
“I have triumphed! You are mine past reprieve, and I fulfil my promise.”
While he spoke, the door unclosed. Instantly the dæmon grasped one of Ambrosio’s arms, spread his broad pinions, and sprang with him into the air. The roof opened as they soared upwards, and closed again when they had quitted the dungeon.
In the mean while, the gaoler was thrown into the utmost surprise by the disappearance of his prisoner. Though neither he nor the archers were in time to witness the monk’s escape, a sulphurous smell prevailing through the prison sufficiently informed them by whose aid he had been liberated. They hastened to make their report to the Grand Inquisitor. The story, how a sorcerer had been carried away by the Devil, was soon noised about Madrid; and for some days the whole city was employed in discussing the subject. Gradually it ceased to be the topic of conversation. Other adventures arose whose novelty engaged universal attention: and Ambrosio was soon forgotten as totally as if he never had existed. While this was passing, the monk, supported by his infernal guide, traversed the air with the rapidity of an arrow; and a few moments placed him upon a precipice’s brink, the steepest in Sierra Morena.
Though rescued from the Inquisition, Ambrosio as yet was insensible of the blessings of liberty. The damning contract weighed heavy upon his mind; and the scenes in which he had been a principal actor had left behind them such impressions as rendered his heart the seat of anarchy and confusion. The objects now before his eyes, and which the full moon sailing through clouds permitted him to examine, were ill calculated to inspire that calm, of which he stood so much in need. The disorder of his imagination was increased by the wildness of the surrounding scenery; by the gloomy caverns and steep rocks, rising above each other, and dividing the passing clouds; solitary clusters of trees scattered here and there, among whose thick-twined branches the wind of night sighed hoarsely and mournfully; the shrill cry of mountain eagles, who had built their nests among these lonely deserts; the stunning roar of torrents, as swelled by late rains they rushed violently down tremendous precipices; and the dark waters of a silent sluggish stream, which faintly reflected the moon-beams, and bathed the rock’s base on which Ambrosio stood. The abbot cast round him a look of terror. His infernal conductor was still by his side, and eyed him with a look of mingled malice, exultation, and contempt.
“Whither have you brought me?” said the monk at length in an hollow trembling voice: “Why am I placed in this melancholy scene? Bear me from it quickly! Carry me to Matilda!”
The fiend replied not, but continued to gaze upon him in silence. Ambrosio could not sustain his glance; he turned away his eyes, while thus spoke the dæmon:
“I have him then in my power! This model of piety! this being without reproach! this mortal who placed his puny virtues on a level with those of angels. He is mine! irrevocably, eternally mine! Companions of my sufferings! denizens of hell! How grateful will be my present!”
He paused; then addressed himself to the monk——
“Carry you to Matilda?” he continued, repeating Ambrosio’s words: “Wretch! you shall soon be with her! You well deserve a place near her, for hell boasts no miscreant more guilty than yourself. Hark, Ambrosio, while I unveil your crimes! You have shed the blood of two innocents; Antonia and Elvira perished by your hand. That Antonia whom you violated, was your sister! that Elvira whom you murdered, gave you birth! Tremble, abandoned hypocrite! inhuman parricide! incestuous ravisher! tremble at the extent of your offences! And you it was who thought yourself proof against temptation, absolved from human frailties, and free from error and vice! Is pride then a virtue? Is inhumanity no fault? Know, vain man! that I long have marked you for my prey: I watched the movements of your heart; I saw that you were virtuous from vanity, not principle, and I seized the fit moment of seduction. I observed your blind idolatry of the Madona’s picture. I bade a subordinate but crafty spirit assume a similar form, and you eagerly yielded to the blandishments of Matilda. Your pride was gratified by her flattery; your lust only needed an opportunity to break forth; you ran into the snare blindly, and scrupled not to commit a crime, which you blamed in another with unfeeling severity. It was I who threw Matilda in your way; it was I who gave you entrance to Antonia’s chamber; it was I who caused the dagger to be given you which pierced your sister’s bosom; and it was I who warned Elvira in dreams of your designs upon her daughter, and thus, by preventing your profiting by her sleep, compelled you to add rape as well as incest to the catalogue of your crimes. Hear, hear, Ambrosio! Had you resisted me one minute longer, you had saved your body and soul. The guards whom you heard at your prison-door, came to signify your pardon. But I had already triumphed: my plots had already succeeded. Scarcely could I propose crimes so quick as you performed them. You are mine, and Heaven itself cannot rescue you from my power. Hope not that your penitence will make void our contract. Here is your bond signed with your blood; you have given up your claim to mercy, and nothing can restore to you the rights which you have foolishly resigned. Believe you, that your secret thoughts escaped me? No, no, I read them all! You trusted that you should still have time for repentance. I saw your artifice, knew its falsity, and rejoiced in deceiving the deceiver! You are mine beyond reprieve: I burn to possess my right, and alive you quit not these mountains.”
During the dæmon’s speech, Ambrosio had been stupefied by terror and surprise. This last declaration roused him.
“Not quit these mountains alive?” he exclaimed: “Perfidious, what mean you? Have you forgotten our contract?”
The fiend answered by a malicious laugh:
“Our contract? Have I not performed my part? What more did I promise than to save you from your prison? Have I not done so? Are you not safe from the Inquisition—safe from all but from me? Fool that you were to confide yourself to a devil! Why did you not stipulate for life, and power, and pleasure? Then all would have been granted: now, your reflections come too late. Miscreant, prepare for death; you have not many hours to live!”
On hearing this sentence, dreadful were the feelings of the devoted wretch! He sank upon his knees, and raised his hands towards heaven. The fiend read his intention, and prevented it——
“What?” he cried, darting at him a look of fury: “Dare you still implore the Eternal’s mercy? Would you feign penitence, and again act an hypocrite’s part? Villain, resign your hopes of pardon. Thus I secure my prey!”
As he said this, darting his talons into the monk’s shaven crown, he sprang with him from the rock. The caves and mountains rang with Ambrosio’s shrieks. The dæmon continued to soar aloft, till reaching a dreadful height, he released the sufferer. Headlong fell the monk through the airy waste; the sharp point of a rock received him; and he rolled from precipice to precipice, till, bruised and mangled, he rested on the river’s banks. Life still existed in his miserable frame: he attempted in vain to raise himself; his broken and dislocated limbs refused to perform their office, nor was he able to quit the spot where he had first fallen. The sun now rose above the horizon; its scorching beams darted full upon the head of the expiring sinner. Myriads of insects were called forth by the warmth; they drank the blood which trickled from Ambrosio’s wounds; he had no power to drive them from him, and they fastened upon his sores, darted their stings into his body, covered him with their multitudes, and inflicted on him tortures the most exquisite and insupportable. The eagles of the rock tore his flesh piecemeal, and dug out his eye-balls with their crooked beaks. A burning thirst tormented him; he heard the river’s murmur as it rolled beside him, but strove in vain to drag himself towards the sound. Blind, maimed, helpless, and despairing, venting his rage in blasphemy and curses, execrating his existence, yet dreading the arrival of death destined to yield him up to greater torments, six miserable days did the villain languish. On the seventh a violent storm arose: the winds in fury rent up rocks and forests: the sky was now black with clouds, now sheeted with fire: the rain fell in torrents; it swelled the stream; the waves overflowed their banks; they reached the spot where Ambrosio lay, and, when they abated, carried with them into the river the corse of the despairing monk.
FINIS
.
N
OTES
1.
Horat.:
Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65
B.C
.-8
B.C.)
,
Epistles
II.ii, 208–209.
P
REFACE
1.
Imitation of Horace,
Epistles
I.xx.
2.
row called Paternoster:
Paternoster Row was a street in London, named for the makers of rosaries (paternosters) who inhabited it during the medieval period. In Lewis’s day, it was the site of numerous booksellers.
3.
olio:
collection of literary works; miscellany.
4.
Stockdale, Hookham, or Debrett:
well-known booksellers.
5.
chimara:
something nonexistent; a product of the imagination.
6.
George the Third:
George III (1738–1820), king of Great Britain and Ireland between 1760 and 1820. Lewis turned twenty in July 1795.
Hague:
city in the Netherlands where Lewis was living when he completed the novel.
A
DVERTISEMENT
1.
the story of the
Santon Barsisa,
related in The Guardian: The Guardian
was a periodical published by Richard Steele between March and October of 1713. In issue number 148, August 31, 1713, Steele published “The History of Santon Barsisa,” a story of an Eastern holy man who succumbs to the temptations of the devil, seduces and kills a maiden, then unsuccessfully attempts to bargain with the devil to escape punishment.
Bleeding Nun:
The story of the Bleeding Nun appears in
Die Volksmärchen der Deutschen
(1782–86), collected by Johann Karl August Musäus (1735–87).
V
OLUME
I
C
HAPTER
1
1.
Epigraph:
Shakespeare,
Measure for Measure
I.iii.50–53. Angelo pretends to be morally upright and virtuous, but lays plans to seduce a young woman who pleads for the life of her brother, whom Angelo has sentenced to death upon charges of sexual licentiousness (invoking severe laws that had fallen into disuse).
2.
Capuchins:
Friars of the Franciscan order, their name was derived from the pointed hoods, or capuches, that they wore. It was customary at the time Lewis was writing to regard friars as a class of monks and to use the terms
friar
and
monk
interchangeably.
3.
St. Francis … St. Mark … St. Agatha:
St. Francis of Assisi founded the Franciscan orders and is the patron saint of animals and nature; St. Mark was the author of the second Gospel in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. St. Agatha was a Sicilian martyr. She took a vow of chastity and was persecuted by a high-ranking official, who had her arrested on charges of Christianity in order to try to force her to become his mistress; he imprisoned her in a brothel, then in jail, and ultimately had her tortured to death.
4.
Segnora:
Lewis’s spelling of
señora
, the Spanish word for
married woman
, or
madam
. Similarly, he uses
segnor
in place of
señor
, Spanish for
man
or
sir
.
5.
Medicean Venus:
The Venus of Medici is a famous statue of the Roman goddess of love that was commissioned by the Medici family, rulers of Renaissance Florence and influential patrons of the arts.
L
. 10
Hamadryad:
a wood nymph.
6.
chaplet:
a string of beads for prayer counting, one-third the size of a rosary.
7.
Murcia:
a southern Spanish province.
8.
St. Barbara:
a fourth-century martyr, secluded in a tower by her heathen father and later denounced and put to death at his hands for her devotion to Christianity.
9.
seraph:
Seraphs are members of the highest order of the nine orders of angels.
10.
mauvaise honte: French expression, meaning “false shame” or “shyness.”
11.
Cordova:
Cordoba, a city in the south of Spain.
12.
condé:
Spanish,
count
.
13.
watching:
sustained, late-night religious vigils.
14.
peccadilloes:
venial sins, minor faults.
15.
Diavolo:
Italian,
devil
.
16.
the Prado:
a promenade in Madrid.
17.
parlour-grate:
a screen through which cloistered nuns were able to speak with visitors from the outside world.
pistoles:
Spanish gold coins.
18.
St. Jago:
St. James, one of the Apostles, who was reputed to have evangelized Spain.
19.
Mount Ætna:
volcano in Sicily.
20.
vespers:
evening prayer service.
21.
St. Clare:
an Italian noblewoman who dedicated herself to following in St. Francis’s footsteps and founded an order of nuns.
22.
Mahomet:
eighteenth-century spelling of the name of the founder of Islam, Muhammad.
23.
hotel:
large mansion, or palace.
24.
phœnix:
a paragon, an exceptional individual. From the name of a mythical bird of which only one was believed to exist at a time.
25.
glasses:
mirrors. p. 25,
philtre:
magic potion.