The Mysteries of Udolpho
“You are young—you are innocent! I mean you are yet innocent of any
great crime!—But you have passions in your heart,—scorpions; they sleep
now—beware how you awaken them!—they will sting you, even unto death!”
Emily, affected by these words and by the solemnity, with which they
were delivered, could not suppress her tears.
“Ah! is it so?” exclaimed Agnes, her countenance softening from its
sternness—“so young, and so unfortunate! We are sisters, then indeed.
Yet, there is no bond of kindness among the guilty,” she added, while
her eyes resumed their wild expression, “no gentleness,—no peace, no
hope! I knew them all once—my eyes could weep—but now they burn, for
now, my soul is fixed, and fearless!—I lament no more!”
“Rather let us repent, and pray,” said another nun. “We are taught to
hope, that prayer and penitence will work our salvation. There is hope
for all who repent!”
“Who repent and turn to the true faith,” observed sister Frances.
“For all but me!” replied Agnes solemnly, who paused, and then abruptly
added, “My head burns, I believe I am not well. O! could I strike from
my memory all former scenes—the figures, that rise up, like furies, to
torment me!—I see them, when I sleep, and, when I am awake, they are
still before my eyes! I see them now—now!”
She stood in a fixed attitude of horror, her straining eyes moving
slowly round the room, as if they followed something. One of the nuns
gently took her hand, to lead her from the parlour. Agnes became calm,
drew her other hand across her eyes, looked again, and, sighing deeply,
said, “They are gone—they are gone! I am feverish, I know not what I
say. I am thus, sometimes, but it will go off again, I shall soon be
better. Was not that the vesper-bell?”
“No,” replied Frances, “the evening service is passed. Let Margaret
lead you to your cell.”
“You are right,” replied sister Agnes, “I shall be better there. Good
night, my sisters, remember me in your orisons.”
When they had withdrawn, Frances, observing Emily’s emotion, said, “Do
not be alarmed, our sister is often thus deranged, though I have not
lately seen her so frantic; her usual mood is melancholy. This fit has
been coming on, for several days; seclusion and the customary treatment
will restore her.”
“But how rationally she conversed, at first!” observed Emily, “her
ideas followed each other in perfect order.”
“Yes,” replied the nun, “this is nothing new; nay, I have sometimes
known her argue not only with method, but with acuteness, and then, in
a moment, start off into madness.”
“Her conscience seems afflicted,” said Emily, “did you ever hear what
circumstance reduced her to this deplorable condition?”
“I have,” replied the nun, who said no more till Emily repeated the
question, when she added in a low voice, and looking significantly
towards the other boarders, “I cannot tell you now, but, if you think
it worth your while, come to my cell, tonight, when our sisterhood are
at rest, and you shall hear more; but remember we rise to midnight
prayers, and come either before, or after midnight.”
Emily promised to remember, and, the abbess soon after appearing, they
spoke no more of the unhappy nun.
The Count meanwhile, on his return home, had found M. Du Pont in one of
those fits of despondency, which his attachment to Emily frequently
occasioned him, an attachment, that had subsisted too long to be easily
subdued, and which had already outlived the opposition of his friends.
M. Du Pont had first seen Emily in Gascony, during the lifetime of his
parent, who, on discovering his son’s partiality for Mademoiselle St.
Aubert, his inferior in point of fortune, forbade him to declare it to
her family, or to think of her more. During the life of his father, he
had observed the first command, but had found it impracticable to obey
the second, and had, sometimes, soothed his passion by visiting her
favourite haunts, among which was the fishing-house, where, once or
twice, he addressed her in verse, concealing his name, in obedience to
the promise he had given his father. There too he played the pathetic
air, to which she had listened with such surprise and admiration; and
there he found the miniature, that had since cherished a passion fatal
to his repose. During his expedition into Italy, his father died; but
he received his liberty at a moment, when he was the least enabled to
profit by it, since the object, that rendered it most valuable, was no
longer within the reach of his vows. By what accident he discovered
Emily, and assisted to release her from a terrible imprisonment, has
already appeared, and also the unavailing hope, with which he then
encouraged his love, and the fruitless efforts, that he had since made
to overcome it.
The Count still endeavoured, with friendly zeal, to sooth him with a
belief, that patience, perseverance and prudence would finally obtain
for him happiness and Emily: “Time,” said he, “will wear away the
melancholy impression, which disappointment has left on her mind, and
she will be sensible of your merit. Your services have already awakened
her gratitude, and your sufferings her pity; and trust me, my friend,
in a heart so sensible as hers, gratitude and pity lead to love. When
her imagination is rescued from its present delusion, she will readily
accept the homage of a mind like yours.”
Du Pont sighed, while he listened to these words; and, endeavouring to
hope what his friend believed, he willingly yielded to an invitation to
prolong his visit at the château, which we now leave for the monastery
of St. Claire.
When the nuns had retired to rest, Emily stole to her appointment with
sister Frances, whom she found in her cell, engaged in prayer, before a
little table, where appeared the image she was addressing, and, above,
the dim lamp that gave light to the place. Turning her eyes, as the
door opened, she beckoned to Emily to come in, who, having done so,
seated herself in silence beside the nun’s little mattress of straw,
till her orisons should conclude. The latter soon rose from her knees,
and, taking down the lamp and placing it on the table, Emily perceived
there a human skull and bones, lying beside an hour-glass; but the nun,
without observing her emotion, sat down on the mattress by her, saying,
“Your curiosity, sister, has made you punctual, but you have nothing
remarkable to hear in the history of poor Agnes, of whom I avoided to
speak in the presence of my lay-sisters, only because I would not
publish her crime to them.”
“I shall consider your confidence in me as a favour,” said Emily, “and
will not misuse it.”
“Sister Agnes,” resumed the nun, “is of a noble family, as the dignity
of her air must already have informed you, but I will not dishonour
their name so much as to reveal it. Love was the occasion of her crime
and of her madness. She was beloved by a gentleman of inferior fortune,
and her father, as I have heard, bestowing her on a nobleman, whom she
disliked, an ill-governed passion proved her destruction.—Every
obligation of virtue and of duty was forgotten, and she prophaned her
marriage vows; but her guilt was soon detected, and she would have
fallen a sacrifice to the vengeance of her husband, had not her father
contrived to convey her from his power. By what means he did this, I
never could learn; but he secreted her in this convent, where he
afterwards prevailed with her to take the veil, while a report was
circulated in the world, that she was dead, and the father, to save his
daughter, assisted the rumour, and employed such means as induced her
husband to believe she had become a victim to his jealousy. You look
surprised,” added the nun, observing Emily’s countenance; “I allow the
story is uncommon, but not, I believe, without a parallel.”
“Pray proceed,” said Emily, “I am interested.”
“The story is already told,” resumed the nun, “I have only to mention,
that the long struggle, which Agnes suffered, between love, remorse and
a sense of the duties she had taken upon herself in becoming of our
order, at length unsettled her reason. At first, she was frantic and
melancholy by quick alternatives; then, she sunk into a deep and
settled melancholy, which still, however, has, at times, been
interrupted by fits of wildness, and, of late, these have again been
frequent.”
Emily was affected by the history of the sister, some parts of whose
story brought to her remembrance that of the Marchioness de Villeroi,
who had also been compelled by her father to forsake the object of her
affections, for a nobleman of his choice; but, from what Dorothée had
related, there appeared no reason to suppose, that she had escaped the
vengeance of a jealous husband, or to doubt for a moment the innocence
of her conduct. But Emily, while she sighed over the misery of the nun,
could not forbear shedding a few tears to the misfortunes of the
Marchioness; and, when she returned to the mention of sister Agnes, she
asked Frances if she remembered her in her youth, and whether she was
then beautiful.
“I was not here at the time, when she took the vows,” replied Frances,
“which is so long ago, that few of the present sisterhood, I believe,
were witnesses of the ceremony; nay, ever our lady mother did not then
preside over the convent: but I can remember, when sister Agnes was a
very beautiful woman. She retains that air of high rank, which always
distinguished her, but her beauty, you must perceive, is fled; I can
scarcely discover even a vestige of the loveliness, that once animated
her features.”
“It is strange,” said Emily, “but there are moments, when her
countenance has appeared familiar to my memory! You will think me
fanciful, and I think myself so, for I certainly never saw sister
Agnes, before I came to this convent, and I must, therefore, have seen
some person, whom she strongly resembles, though of this I have no
recollection.”
“You have been interested by the deep melancholy of her countenance,”
said Frances, “and its impression has probably deluded your
imagination; for I might as reasonably think I perceive a likeness
between you and Agnes, as you, that you have seen her anywhere but in
this convent, since this has been her place of refuge, for nearly as
many years as make your age.”
“Indeed!” said Emily.
“Yes,” rejoined Frances, “and why does that circumstance excite your
surprise?”
Emily did not appear to notice this question, but remained thoughtful,
for a few moments, and then said, “It was about that same period that
the Marchioness de Villeroi expired.”
“That is an odd remark,” said Frances.
Emily, recalled from her reverie, smiled, and gave the conversation
another turn, but it soon came back to the subject of the unhappy nun,
and Emily remained in the cell of sister Frances, till the midnight
bell aroused her; when, apologising for having interrupted the sister’s
repose, till this late hour, they quitted the cell together. Emily
returned to her chamber, and the nun, bearing a glimmering taper, went
to her devotion in the chapel.
Several days followed, during which Emily saw neither the Count, nor
any of his family; and, when, at length, he appeared, she remarked,
with concern, that his air was unusually disturbed.
“My spirits are harassed,” said he, in answer to her anxious enquiries,
“and I mean to change my residence, for a little while, an experiment,
which, I hope, will restore my mind to its usual tranquillity. My
daughter and myself will accompany the Baron St. Foix to his château.
It lies in a valley of the Pyrenees, that opens towards Gascony, and I
have been thinking, Emily, that, when you set out for La Vallée, we may
go part of the way together; it would be a satisfaction to me to guard
you towards your home.”