I heard all this in silence, with my head sunk down, and with eyes fixed on the ground. The badinage of the strangers was to me, in my present mood of mind, abhorrent and tormenting. In vain did they urge me to taste the wine of St Anthony! I resolutely refused, and at last was allowed to shut up the bottle, well corked, into its proper receptacle.
Thus, then, I had for once triumphed and escaped. The strangers, indeed, would have endeavoured to prove, that this trial of the wine was but a venial transgression; but even of venial transgressions, I had at that time a proper abhorrence, knowing that they formed the sure and ample foundation for mortal sins.
The strangers left the monastery. But, as I sat alone in my cell, I could not disguise from myself, or deny, that I felt a certain cheerfulness of mind, and exhilaration of spirit. It was obvious that the powerful and spirituous odour of the wine had revived me. No trace or symptom of the bad effects of which Cyrillus had spoken did I experience. On the contrary, an influence the most opposite became decidedly manifest.
The more that I now meditated on the legend of St. Anthony, and the more livelily that I called to mind the words of the tutor, the more certain did it appear to me, that the explanations of the latter were correct and well-founded. Then, first, with the rapidity and vehemence of lightning, the thought rushed through me, that on that unhappy day, when the horrible vision broke the thread of my discourse, I too had been on the point of interpreting the legend of St Anthony in the same manner as an ingenious allegory. With this thought another soon was united, which filled my mind so completely, that every other consideration almost faded away.
"How," said I to myself, "if this extraordinary and odoriferous drink actually possessed the secret efficacy of restoring thy strength, and rekindling that intellectual fire which has been so frightfully extinguished? What, if already some mysterious relationship of thy spirit, with the mystical powers contained in that bottle, has been plainly indicated, and even proved, if it were no more than by this,—that the very same odour which stunned and distracted the weakly Cyrillus, has, on thee, only produced the most beneficial effects?"
When already I had at various times even resolved to follow the counsel of the strangers, and was in the act of walking through the church towards the reliquary room, I perceived an inward, and, to myself, inexplicable resistance, which held me back. Nay, once, when on the very point of unlocking the cabinet, it seemed to me as if I beheld in the powerful alto relievo of the antique carvings on the pannel, the horrible countenance of the painter, with his fixed glaring eyes, of which the intolerable expression still penetrated through my heart, and vehemently seized by a supernatural horror, I fled from the room, in order to prostrate myself at one of the altars in the church, and repent of my temerity!
But, notwithstanding all my endeavours, the same thought continued to persecute me, that only by participation in that miraculous wine could my now sunk spirit be refreshed and restored. The behaviour of the Prior and the monks, who treated me with the most mortifying, however well intended, kindness, as a person disordered in intellect, brought me to absolute despair; and as Leonardus granted me a dispensation from the usual devotional exercises, in order that I might completely recover my strength, I had more time for reflection. In the course of one long sleepless night, persecuted and tortured by my inward sense of degradation, I resolved that I would venture all things, even to death, and the eternal destruction of my soul, in order to regain the station that I had lost. I was, in short, determined to obtain my former powers of mind, or to perish in the attempt.