Undescribable was the feeling which filled my heart, when I once more beheld her, who, towards my father, had been so deeply attached, and, after he had through his crimes broken off a union which promised him every happiness, had yet transferred her unconquerable affection to his son.
That son she had endeavoured to rear up to a life of virtue and piety; but, like his father, he heaped up crime on crime, so that every hope of the adoptive mother, who wished to find in the one consolation for the profligacy of the other, was annihilated.
With my head hung downwards, and eyes fixed on the ground, I listened to the discourse, wherein the Abbess once more formally announced to the assembled monks, Aurelia's entrance into the Cistertian Convent; and begged of them to pray zealously at the decisive moment of the last vow, in order that the Arch-Fiend might not have any power at that time to torment the pious virgin, by his abominable delusions.—"Heavy and severe," said she, "were the trials which this young woman had already to resist. There was no method of temptation which the great adversary of mankind did not employ, in order to lead her unawares into the commission of sins, from which she should awake when it was too late, as if from a hideous dream, to perish in shame and despair!
"Yet Omnipotence protected this truly pious votary of the church; and if on this day, too, the adversary should approach her, and once more aim at her destruction, her history now will be the more glorious. I request, then, your most zealous prayers—not that this chosen votary may be firm and unchanged in her resolve, for her mind has long been devoted wholly to Heaven; but that no earthly misfortune may interrupt the solemn act of her investiture, or disturb her thoughts in that sacred act. I must confess that a mysterious timidity—an apprehension, has got possession of my mind, for which I am unable to account, but which I have no power of resisting."
Hereupon it became clear and obvious, that the Abbess alluded to me alone, as that evil adversary—that destructive demon, who would probably interrupt the ceremony. She had heard of my arrival, and, being aware of my previous history, had imagined that I came with the fixed intention of committing some new crime to prevent Aurelia from taking the veil. The consciousness how groundless were these suspicions, and of the change which my mind had undergone, caused, for the moment, a sinful feeling of self-approbation, which I ought to have repressed, but which, like other vices, obtained a victory before I was on my guard. The Abbess did not vouchsafe towards me a single look, or the slightest sign of recognition. Hereupon I felt once more that proud spirit of scorn and defiance, by which I had been formerly actuated towards the Princess in the residenz; and when the Abbess spoke these words, instead of wishing, as of yore, to humble myself before her in the dust, I could have walked up to her, and said:—
"Wert thou then always so pure and elevated in soul, that the pleasures of terrestrial life never had for thee any attraction? When thou daily sawest my father, wert thou so well guarded by devotion, that sinful thoughts never entered into thy mind? Or, when adorned with the infula and crosier, in all thy conventual dignity, did his image never wake within thee a longing desire to return into the world? Hast thou contended with the dark powers as I have done? Or canst thou flatter thyself with having gained a true victory, if thou hast never been called into a severe combat? Deem not thyself so proudly elevated that thou canst despise him, who submitted indeed to the most powerful of enemies, yet again raised himself up by deep repentance, and the severest penance."
The sudden and demoniacal change that I had undergone, must have been visible in my exterior looks and deportment; for the brother who was next to me, inquired, "What is the matter with you, Brother Medardus? Why do you cast such angry looks towards the truly sanctified Abbess?"
"Ay, indeed," answered I, almost audibly; "she may indeed be sanctified, for she carried her head always so high, that the contamination of profane life could not reach her; and yet, methinks, she appears to me at this moment less like a Christian saint than a pagan priestess, who, with the bloody knife in her hand, prepares to immolate before an idol her human victim!"
I know not how I came to pronounce these blasphemous words, which were out of the track of my previous ideas, but with them arose in my mind a multitude of the most horrible and distracting images, which seemed to unite and harmonize together, as if for the purpose of gaining more strength, and effectually obtaining the victory over any degree of rational self-possession I had left.
Aurelia was for ever to forsake and renounce this world!—She was to bind herself, as I had done, by a vow, that appeared to me only the invention of religious fanaticism, to renounce all earthly enjoyments! Old impressions, which I had believed for ever lost, revived on me with tenfold strength and influence. My attention was again wholly engrossed by the one idea, that Aurelia and the monk should yet be united, though it were but for a moment, and then perish together, a sacrifice to the subterranean powers of darkness. Nay, like a hideous spectre, like Satan himself, the thought of murder once more rose on my mind. I beheld myself with the bloody dagger in my hand!—Alas, poor blinded wretch! I did not perceive that at the moment when I had conceived such resentment against the Abbess for her supposed allusions, I was given up a prey to perhaps the severest trial to which the power of the devil had ever subjected me, and by which I was to be enticed to the most hideous crime of which I had yet even dreamed!