The Monk

Ambrosio has just dismissed the other monks from his room. Alone, he basks in his vanity and his pride as he remembers how deeply his sermon moved the congregants. He feels better than all other mortals, having never given into temptation. Still, he considers that he may yet succumb to lust and desire—he is a man, after all! As he says this, he gazes at the picture of the Virgin Mary, whose image he has grown more affection for over the years. He praises her virginal features.

Just then, Ambrosio hears a knock at the door. “It is only Rosario,” calls out a soft voice. Ambrosio orders Rosario to enter. Rosario is a young novice at the monastery, and not much is known about him. He is sweet and gentle but reserved. He is almost as pious as Ambrosio, whom he holds in such high esteem that it practically borders on idolatry. Ambrosio is similarly taken by Rosario and treats him with less “severity” than he does the others, almost like a son.

Rosario says he’s come to Ambrosio to ask him to pray for his friend, who is gravely ill. Ambrosio agrees. Then Rosario praises Ambrosio’s talent as an orator. He almost wishes he’d never met him or heard him preach, because now he cannot bear to think of the suffering he’d incur should he lose Ambrosio’s friendship. Just then, the bells ring out for evening prayers, and Rosario announces that he must leave. He throws himself before Ambrosio’s feet for a blessing, then he departs.

After vespers (evening prayers), Ambrosio stays in the chapel to listen to the nuns’ confessions. One nun (Agnes) lets a letter fall from her habit, and she’s alarmed when she realizes Ambrosio has seen it. He demands to read it, and she reluctantly acquiesces. The letter, addressed to Agnes, orders her to wait for the letter-writer at the garden-door at midnight the following night. He reminds her that she has promised herself to him. When Ambrosio finishes reading it, he sternly explains that he must forward the letter to the prioress. Agnes pleads with Ambrosio for mercy, but Ambrosio refuses, angrily proclaiming Agnes a sinner. Agnes explains that she had sex with her seducer in the gardens of St. Clare one night and is now pregnant. The convent will punish her most cruelly for her mistake, she explains, and she pleads again for Ambrosio to not show the prioress the letter.

Ambrosio refuses to grant Agnes mercy and tells the prioress about Agnes’s sin. He feels bad when Agnes is dragged out of the chapel to receive a cruel and severe punishment, but he ultimately decides he’s done the right thing. Wanting to clear his mind, he heads to the abbey garden. In a corner of the garden is a little grotto, and there he encounters Rosario. He stands in silence and watches Rosario from a distance, then he approaches the boy and invites him to sit beside him.

Rosario gestures toward lines of verse engraved on a marble tablet in the grotto, praising the poem’s imagery of the idyllic world of a hermit free from the vices of society. Ambrosio argues that not having to ward off temptation would make a person feel restless and gloomy, however. And Rosario should be grateful for his life in the monastery, which shields him from the sinful outside world yet also affords him the comforts of modern society. Suddenly, Rosario jumps up and proclaims that he wishes he had never laid eyes on Ambrosio. Then he runs from the grotto.

Rosario returns to the grotto before long. Observing a nightingale in a tree, he confesses that his late sister Matilda used to listen to the nightingale’s song in her dying days. This is news to Ambrosio, who never knew Rosario had a sister. Rosario explains that his sister loved a noble man, Julian, who was engaged to someone else. Matilda hatched a plan to ingratiate herself with Julian by becoming a domestic servant to Julian’s wife. The plan worked—until Matilda confessed her love, resulting in Julian sending her away. Matilda returned to her father’s house and then died only a few months later.

When Ambrosio expresses pity for Matilda, Rosario suddenly cries out that Ambrosio should feel pity for him, too. He admits he has a big secret, and it’s weighing heavily on his conscience. After some cajoling, he finally comes clean. He (she) is actually Matilda, and Ambrosio is her beloved. Ambrosio was ready to flee after learning that Rosario is actually Matilda, but hearing this second revelation makes him freeze, giving Matilda an opportunity to further explain herself.

Matilda explains that her father was chief of the noble house of Villanegas. He died when she was a baby, leaving her his immense fortune. The sons of Madrid’s noblest families sought her hand in marriage, but she turned them down—she’d been raised by an uncle who instilled in her “more strength and justness” than the average woman tends to have, so none of the suitors interested her. The uncle also taught her about the beauty of piety. One day, she happened upon the cathedral of the Capuchins, saw Ambrosio for the first time, and knew she had to have him. Her love for him only grew as time passed, dampened only by her ever-present fear that her true identity might one day be discovered. That’s when she decided to just come clean and tell Ambrosio the truth herself. She pleads with him that she be able to stay.

Matilda’s bold confession shocks Ambrosio and fills him with many conflicting emotions. Then he pulls away and tells her she can’t possibly stay. A woman can’t live at the monastery, and especially not one who loves him—the temptation would be too great. Matilda insists that she has no impure intentions: she only loves Ambrosio for his virtue, and she’d no longer have feelings for him if he were to lose it. But Ambrosio won’t budge, and he demands that she leave tomorrow.

Undeterred, Matilda threatens to plunge a dagger into her chest, killing herself, if Ambrosio forces her to leave. Then she rips open her habit, exposing her left breast. Ambrosio stares “with insatiable avidity upon the beauteous orb,” and his body fills with many intense feelings. Feeling unable to resist temptation any longer, he runs from her and returns to his cell.

Alone in his cell, Ambrosio tries to work through his confused feelings. Would it really be so bad to keep Matilda around? Maybe they could remain friends like they were before she revealed her true identity. After all, she’s not made any move to tempt him, having kept her gender a secret from him all this time. But suddenly his thoughts drift to Matilda’s exposed breast, and he blushes.

Ambrosio’s sleep that night isn’t great—all night, he dreams of nothing but “the most voluptuous objects.” In some of his dreams, he kisses Matilda passionately. In other dreams, the Virgin Mary appears, and he imagines that he is “kneeling before her,” and she looks down on him sweetly as he “presse[s] his lips to hers.”

Ambrosio and Matilda reconvene in the garden, and Ambrosio, having realized that it was his lust that compelled him to let Matilda stay, tells her she must leave in three days. Matilda protests, but Ambrosio holds firm. Just then, he cries out and declares that he “ha[s] received [his] death”: a snake has bitten him. Ambrosio, overcome with pain, sinks into Matilda’s arms. Matilda cries out for help, and Ambrosio’s fellow monks run to the garden to assist him. Father Pablos inspects the wound and announces that there is no hope: Ambrosio has been bitten by a cientipedoro, the deadliest of snakes, and he will die within three days.

The monks carry Ambrosio to his cell. Pablos gives him a medication and urges him not to overexert himself with conversation, then everyone but Matilda (as Rosario) leaves. She offers to entertain Ambrosio with some singing, and he obliges. Matilda sings the ballad of Durandarte and Belerma. Ambrosio has never heard such beautiful singing, and he imagines that Matilda’s voice must be more heavenly than that of an angel. But he can’t stop thinking about caressing her. Ambrosio shuts his eyes to try to banish his sinful thoughts, feigning sleep.

Matilda, apparently thinking that Ambrosio is asleep, muses aloud about her desire for him and about how much their relationship has changed since she revealed her true identity to him yesterday. She begins to weep and turns away from him. Ambrosio opens his eyes to sneak a look at her and takes in her beauty. Finally he calls out to her, and she turns to face him. He reflects on how much she resembles the portrait of the Madona on which he has gazed with such affection and religious devotion. Matilda, as though reading his thoughts, reveals that, in an effort to endear herself to Ambrosio, she had her portrait commissioned to be painted in the style of the Madona and sent to the abbey. Then she watched as Ambrosio unconsciously and unknowingly gazed affectionately upon her.

Not knowing how to respond to this shocking revelation, Ambrosio orders Matilda to leave him alone. Matilda pleads with him to let her stay, and Ambrosio agrees to let her remain at the monastery for three more days.

Over the next couple days, Ambrosio’s condition improves, and eventually he’s able to leave his bed. He and Matilda covertly meet in the grotto, and he notices that she is gravely ill. He pleads with her to let Father Pablos tend to her, but Matilda refuses, running off to her cell. Alone later, Ambrosio laments the life he and Matilda could have had together were he not devoted to the church. Later, he is told that Matilda (as Rosario) has summoned him to her cell: she is on her deathbed. Alone with Ambrosio in her cell, Matilda explains why Ambrosio has recovered while she is dying: while Ambrosio was asleep, she kissed his wound and sucked out the poison.

Ambrosio, amazed and disarmed by Matilda’s great sacrifice, lowers his defenses. Meanwhile Matilda declares that in her dying hour, her ability to ward off temptation has been considerably weakened: she wishes to indulge in the sin of pleasure before she dies. Unable to deny his desire for her any longer, Ambrosio seizes Matilda and kisses her, disregarding “his vows, his sanctity, and his fame,” acting entirely on impulses of “pleasure and opportunity.”