 Antonia; but the impression soon wore off, and in a few
hours she had forgotten the adventure, as totally as had it never taken place.
 

                                   Chapter II

 Fòrse sé tu gustassi una sòl volta
 La millésima parte délle giòje,
 Ché gusta un còr amato riamando,
 Diresti ripentita sospirando,
 Perduto è tutto il tempo
 Ché in amar non si spènde.
                                                                          Tasso.
 
 Hadst thou but tasted once the thousandth part
 Of joys, which bless the loved and loving heart,
 Your words repentant and your sighs would prove,
 Lost is the time which is not past in love.
 
The monks having attended their abbot to the door of his cell, he dismissed them
with an air of conscious superiority, in which humility's semblance combated
with the reality of pride.
    He was no sooner alone, than he gave free loose to the indulgence of his
vanity. When he remembered the enthusiasm which his discourse had excited, his
heart swelled with rapture, and his imagination presented him with splendid
visions of aggrandizement. He looked round him with exultation; and pride told
him loudly, that he was superior to the rest of his fellow-
    »Who,« thought he, »who but myself has passed the ordeal of youth, yet sees
no single stain upon his conscience? Who else has subdued the violence of strong
passions and an impetuous temperament, and submitted even from the dawn of life
to voluntary retirement? I seek for such a man in vain. I see no one but myself
possessed of such resolution. Religion cannot boast Ambrosio's equal! How
powerful an effect did my discourse produce upon its auditors! How they crowded
round me! How they loaded me with benedictions, and pronounced me the sole
uncorrupted pillar of the church! What then now is left for me to do? Nothing,
but to watch as carefully over the conduct of my brethren, as I have hitherto
watched over my own. Yet hold! May I not be tempted from those paths, which till
now I have pursued without one moment's wandering? Am I not a man, whose nature
is frail and prone to error? I must now abandon the solitude of my retreat; the
fairest and noblest dames of Madrid continually present themselves at the abbey,
and will use no other confessor. I must accustom my eyes to objects of
temptation, and expose myself to the seduction of luxury and desire. Should I
meet in that world which I am constrained to enter, some lovely female - lovely
as you - Madona -!«
    As he said this, he fixed his eyes upon a picture of the Virgin, which was
suspended
