“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 forever.
“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.