The Mysteries of Udolpho
“I have no ambition whatever, madam,” replied Emily, “my only wish is
to remain in my present station.”
“O! that is speaking quite from the purpose,” said her aunt, “I see you
are still thinking of Mons. Valancourt. Pray get rid of all those
fantastic notions about love, and this ridiculous pride, and be
something like a reasonable creature. But, however, this is nothing to
the purpose—for your marriage with the Count takes place tomorrow, you
know, whether you approve it or not. The Count will be trifled with no
longer.”
Emily made no attempt to reply to this curious speech; she felt it
would be mean, and she knew it would be useless. Madame Montoni laid
the Count’s presents upon the table, on which Emily was leaning, and
then, desiring she would be ready early in the morning, bade her
good-night. “Good-night, madam,” said Emily, with a deep sigh, as the
door closed upon her aunt, and she was left once more to her own sad
reflections. For some time she sat so lost in thought, as to be wholly
unconscious where she was; at length, raising her head, and looking
round the room, its gloom and profound stillness awed her. She fixed
her eyes on the door, through which her aunt had disappeared, and
listened anxiously for some sound, that might relieve the deep
dejection of her spirits; but it was past midnight, and all the family
except the servant, who sat up for Montoni, had retired to bed. Her
mind, long harassed by distress, now yielded to imaginary terrors; she
trembled to look into the obscurity of her spacious chamber, and feared
she knew not what; a state of mind, which continued so long, that she
would have called up Annette, her aunt’s woman, had her fears permitted
her to rise from her chair, and to cross the apartment.
These melancholy illusions at length began to disperse, and she retired
to her bed, not to sleep, for that was scarcely possible, but to try,
at least, to quiet her disturbed fancy, and to collect strength of
spirits sufficient to bear her through the scene of the approaching
morning.
CHAPTER V
Dark power! with shudd’ring, meek submitted thought
Be mine to read the visions old
Which thy awak’ning bards have told,
And, lest they meet my blasted view,
Hold each strange tale devoutly true.
COLLINS’ ODE TO FEAR
Emily was recalled from a kind of slumber, into which she had, at
length, sunk, by a quick knocking at her chamber door. She started up
in terror, for Montoni and Count Morano instantly came to her mind;
but, having listened in silence for some time, and recognising the
voice of Annette, she rose and opened the door. “What brings you hither
so early?” said Emily, trembling excessively. She was unable to support
herself, and sat down on the bed.
“Dear ma’amselle!” said Annette, “do not look so pale. I am quite
frightened to see you. Here is a fine bustle below stairs, all the
servants running to and fro, and none of them fast enough! Here is a
bustle, indeed, all of a sudden, and nobody knows for what!”
“Who is below besides them?” said Emily, “Annette, do not trifle with
me!”
“Not for the world, ma’amselle, I would not trifle for the world; but
one cannot help making one’s remarks, and there is the Signor in such a
bustle, as I never saw him before; and he has sent me to tell you,
ma’am, to get ready immediately.”
“Good God support me!” cried Emily, almost fainting, “Count Morano is
below, then!”
“No, ma’amselle, he is not below that I know of,” replied Annette,
“only his _Excellenza_ sent me to desire you would get ready directly
to leave Venice, for that the gondolas would be at the steps of the
canal in a few minutes: but I must hurry back to my lady, who is just
at her wits’ end, and knows not which way to turn for haste.”
“Explain, Annette, explain the meaning of all this before you go,” said
Emily, so overcome with surprise and timid hope, that she had scarcely
breath to speak.
“Nay, ma’amselle, that is more than I can do. I only know that the
Signor is just come home in a very ill humour, that he has had us all
called out of our beds, and tells us we are all to leave Venice
immediately.”
“Is Count Morano to go with the Signor?” said Emily, “and whither are
we going?”
“I know neither, ma’am, for certain; but I heard Ludovico say something
about going, after we get to _Terra-firma_, to the signor’s castle
among some mountains, that he talked of.”
“The Apennines!” said Emily, eagerly, “O! then I have little to hope!”
“That is the very place, ma’am. But cheer up, and do not take it so
much to heart, and think what a little time you have to get ready in,
and how impatient the Signor is. Holy St. Mark! I hear the oars on the
canal; and now they come nearer, and now they are dashing at the steps
below; it is the gondola, sure enough.”
Annette hastened from the room; and Emily prepared for this unexpected
flight, as fast as her trembling hands would permit, not perceiving,
that any change in her situation could possibly be for the worse. She
had scarcely thrown her books and clothes into her travelling trunk,
when, receiving a second summons, she went down to her aunt’s
dressing-room, where she found Montoni impatiently reproving his wife
for delay. He went out, soon after, to give some further orders to his
people, and Emily then enquired the occasion of this hasty journey; but
her aunt appeared to be as ignorant as herself, and to undertake the
journey with more reluctance.
The family at length embarked, but neither Count Morano, nor Cavigni,
was of the party. Somewhat revived by observing this, Emily, when the
gondolieri dashed their oars in the water, and put off from the steps
of the portico, felt like a criminal, who receives a short reprieve.
Her heart beat yet lighter, when they emerged from the canal into the
ocean, and lighter still, when they skimmed past the walls of St. Mark,
without having stopped to take up Count Morano.
The dawn now began to tint the horizon, and to break upon the shores of
the Adriatic. Emily did not venture to ask any questions of Montoni,
who sat, for some time, in gloomy silence, and then rolled himself up
in his cloak, as if to sleep, while Madame Montoni did the same; but
Emily, who could not sleep, undrew one of the little curtains of the
gondola, and looked out upon the sea. The rising dawn now enlightened
the mountain-tops of Friuli, but their lower sides, and the distant
waves, that rolled at their feet, were still in deep shadow. Emily,
sunk in tranquil melancholy, watched the strengthening light spreading
upon the ocean, showing successively Venice and her islets, and the
shores of Italy, along which boats, with their pointed latin sails,
began to move.
The gondolieri were frequently hailed, at this early hour, by the
market-people, as they glided by towards Venice, and the lagune soon
displayed a gay scene of innumerable little barks, passing from
_Terra-firma_ with provisions. Emily gave a last look to that splendid
city, but her mind was then occupied by considering the probable
events, that awaited her, in the scenes, to which she was removing, and
with conjectures, concerning the motive of this sudden journey. It
appeared, upon calmer consideration, that Montoni was removing her to
his secluded castle, because he could there, with more probability of
success, attempt to terrify her into obedience; or, that, should its
gloomy and sequestered scenes fail of this effect, her forced marriage
with the Count could there be solemnized with the secrecy, which was
necessary to the honour of Montoni. The little spirit, which this
reprieve had recalled, now began to fail, and, when Emily reached the
shore, her mind had sunk into all its former depression.
Montoni did not embark on the Brenta, but pursued his way in carriages
across the country, towards the Apennine; during which journey, his
manner to Emily was so particularly severe, that this alone would have
confirmed her late conjecture, had any such confirmation been
necessary. Her senses were now dead to the beautiful country, through
which she travelled. Sometimes she was compelled to smile at the
_naïveté_ of Annette, in her remarks on what she saw, and sometimes to
sigh, as a scene of peculiar beauty recalled Valancourt to her
thoughts, who was indeed seldom absent from them, and of whom she could
never hope to hear in the solitude, to which she was hastening.
At length, the travellers began to ascend among the Apennines. The
immense pine-forests, which, at that period, overhung these mountains,
and between which the road wound, excluded all view but of the cliffs
aspiring above, except, that, now and then, an opening through the dark
woods allowed the eye a momentary glimpse of the country below. The
gloom of these shades, their solitary silence, except when the breeze
swept over their summits, the tremendous precipices of the mountains,
that came partially to the eye, each assisted to raise the solemnity of
Emily’s feelings into awe; she saw only images of gloomy grandeur, or
of dreadful sublimity, around her; other images, equally gloomy and
equally terrible, gleamed on her imagination. She was going she
scarcely knew whither, under the dominion of a person, from whose
arbitrary disposition she had already suffered so much, to marry,
perhaps, a man who possessed neither her affection, nor esteem; or to
endure, beyond the hope of succour, whatever punishment revenge, and
that Italian revenge, might dictate.—The more she considered what might
be the motive of the journey, the more she became convinced, that it
was for the purpose of concluding her nuptials with Count Morano, with
that secrecy, which her resolute resistance had made necessary to the
honour, if not to the safety, of Montoni. From the deep solitudes, into
which she was emerging, and from the gloomy castle, of which she had
heard some mysterious hints, her sick heart recoiled in despair, and
she experienced, that, though her mind was already occupied by peculiar
distress, it was still alive to the influence of new and local
circumstance; why else did she shudder at the idea of this desolate
castle?
As the travellers still ascended among the pine forests, steep rose
over steep, the mountains seemed to multiply, as they went, and what
was the summit of one eminence proved to be only the base of another.
At length, they reached a little plain, where the drivers stopped to
rest the mules, whence a scene of such extent and magnificence opened
below, as drew even from Madame Montoni a note of admiration. Emily
lost, for a moment, her sorrows, in the immensity of nature. Beyond the
amphitheatre of mountains, that stretched below, whose tops appeared as
numerous almost, as the waves of the sea, and whose feet were concealed
by the forests—extended the _campagna_ of Italy, where cities and
rivers, and woods and all the glow of cultivation were mingled in gay
confusion. The Adriatic bounded the horizon, into which the Po and the
Brenta, after winding through the whole extent of the landscape, poured
their fruitful waves. Emily gazed long on the splendours of the world
she was quitting, of which the whole magnificence seemed thus given to
her sight only to increase her regret on leaving it; for her,
Valancourt alone was in that world; to him alone her heart turned, and
for him alone fell her bitter tears.
From this sublime scene the travellers continued to ascend among the
pines, till they entered a narrow pass of the mountains, which shut out
every feature of the distant country, and, in its stead, exhibited only
tremendous crags, impending over the road, where no vestige of
humanity, or even of vegetation, appeared, except here and there the
trunk and scathed branches of an oak, that hung nearly headlong from