The Mysteries of Udolpho
of paper, with her drawing instruments, and she was thus enabled to
amuse herself with selecting some of the lovely features of the
prospect, that her window commanded, and combining them in scenes, to
which her tasteful fancy gave a last grace. In these little sketches
she generally placed interesting groups, characteristic of the scenery
they animated, and often contrived to tell, with perspicuity, some
simple and affecting story, when, as a tear fell over the pictured
griefs, which her imagination drew, she would forget, for a moment, her
real sufferings. Thus innocently she beguiled the heavy hours of
misfortune, and, with meek patience, awaited the events of futurity.
A beautiful evening, that had succeeded to a sultry day, at length
induced Emily to walk, though she knew that Bertrand must attend her,
and, with Maddelina for her companion, she left the cottage, followed
by Bertrand, who allowed her to choose her own way. The hour was cool
and silent, and she could not look upon the country around her without
delight. How lovely, too, appeared the brilliant blue that coloured all
the upper region of the air, and, thence fading downward, was lost in
the saffron glow of the horizon! Nor less so were the varied shades and
warm colouring of the Apennines, as the evening sun threw his slanting
rays athwart their broken surface. Emily followed the course of the
stream, under the shades, that overhung its grassy margin. On the
opposite banks, the pastures were animated with herds of cattle of a
beautiful cream-colour; and, beyond, were groves of lemon and orange,
with fruit glowing on the branches, frequent almost as the leaves,
which partly concealed it. She pursued her way towards the sea, which
reflected the warm glow of sunset, while the cliffs, that rose over its
edge, were tinted with the last rays. The valley was terminated on the
right by a lofty promontory, whose summit, impending over the waves,
was crowned with a ruined tower, now serving for the purpose of a
beacon, whose shattered battlements and the extended wings of some
sea-fowl, that circled near it, were still illumined by the upward
beams of the sun, though his disk was now sunk beneath the horizon;
while the lower part of the ruin, the cliff on which it stood and the
waves at its foot, were shaded with the first tints of twilight.
Having reached this headland, Emily gazed with solemn pleasure on the
cliffs, that extended on either hand along the sequestered shores, some
crowned with groves of pine, and others exhibiting only barren
precipices of greyish marble, except where the crags were tufted with
myrtle and other aromatic shrubs. The sea slept in a perfect calm; its
waves, dying in murmurs on the shores, flowed with the gentlest
undulation, while its clear surface reflected in softened beauty the
vermeil tints of the west. Emily, as she looked upon the ocean, thought
of France and of past times, and she wished, Oh! how ardently, and
vainly—wished! that its waves would bear her to her distant native
home!
“Ah! that vessel,” said she, “that vessel, which glides along so
stately, with its tall sails reflected in the water is, perhaps, bound
for France! Happy—happy bark!” She continued to gaze upon it, with warm
emotion, till the grey of twilight obscured the distance, and veiled it
from her view. The melancholy sound of the waves at her feet assisted
the tenderness, that occasioned her tears, and this was the only sound,
that broke upon the hour, till, having followed the windings of the
beach, for some time, a chorus of voices passed her on the air. She
paused a moment, wishing to hear more, yet fearing to be seen, and, for
the first time, looked back to Bertrand, as her protector, who was
following, at a short distance, in company with some other person.
Reassured by this circumstance, she advanced towards the sounds, which
seemed to arise from behind a high promontory, that projected athwart
the beach. There was now a sudden pause in the music, and then one
female voice was heard to sing in a kind of chant. Emily quickened her
steps, and, winding round the rock, saw, within the sweeping bay,
beyond, which was hung with woods from the borders of the beach to the
very summit of the cliffs, two groups of peasants, one seated beneath
the shades, and the other standing on the edge of the sea, round the
girl, who was singing, and who held in her hand a chaplet of flowers,
which she seemed about to drop into the waves.
Emily, listening with surprise and attention, distinguished the
following invocation delivered in the pure and elegant tongue of
Tuscany, and accompanied by a few pastoral instruments.
TO A SEA-NYMPH
O nymph! who loves to float on the green wave,
When Neptune sleeps beneath the moonlight hour,
Lull’d by the music’s melancholy pow’r,
O nymph, arise from out thy pearly cave!
For Hesper beams amid the twilight shade,
And soon shall Cynthia tremble o’er the tide,
Gleam on these cliffs, that bound the ocean’s pride,
And lonely silence all the air pervade.
Then, let thy tender voice at distance swell,
And steal along this solitary shore,
Sink on the breeze, till dying—heard no more—
Thou wak’st the sudden magic of thy shell.
While the long coast in echo sweet replies,
Thy soothing strains the pensive heart beguile,
And bid the visions of the future smile,
O nymph! from out thy pearly cave—arise!
(Chorus)—_Arise!_
(Semi-chorus)—_Arise!_
The last words being repeated by the surrounding group, the garland of
flowers was thrown into the waves, and the chorus, sinking gradually
into a chant, died away in silence.
“What can this mean, Maddelina?” said Emily, awakening from the
pleasing trance, into which the music had lulled her. “This is the eve
of a festival, Signora,” replied Maddelina; “and the peasants then
amuse themselves with all kinds of sports.”
“But they talked of a sea-nymph,” said Emily: “how came these good
people to think of a sea-nymph?”
“O, Signora,” rejoined Maddelina, mistaking the reason of Emily’s
surprise, “nobody _believes_ in such things, but our old songs tell of
them, and, when we are at our sports, we sometimes sing to them, and
throw garlands into the sea.”
Emily had been early taught to venerate Florence as the seat of
literature and of the fine arts; but, that its taste for classic story
should descend to the peasants of the country, occasioned her both
surprise and admiration. The Arcadian air of the girls next attracted
her attention. Their dress was a very short full petticoat of light
green, with a boddice of white silk; the sleeves loose, and tied up at
the shoulders with ribbons and bunches of flowers. Their hair, falling
in ringlets on their necks, was also ornamented with flowers, and with
a small straw hat, which, set rather backward and on one side of the
head, gave an expression of gaiety and smartness to the whole figure.
When the song had concluded, several of these girls approached Emily,
and, inviting her to sit down among them, offered her, and Maddelina,
whom they knew, grapes and figs.
Emily accepted their courtesy, much pleased with the gentleness and
grace of their manners, which appeared to be perfectly natural to them;
and when Bertrand, soon after, approached, and was hastily drawing her
away, a peasant, holding up a flask, invited him to drink; a
temptation, which Bertrand was seldom very valiant in resisting.
“Let the young lady join in the dance, my friend,” said the peasant,
“while we empty this flask. They are going to begin directly. Strike
up! my lads, strike up your tambourines and merry flutes!”
They sounded gaily; and the younger peasants formed themselves into a
circle, which Emily would readily have joined, had her spirits been in
unison with their mirth. Maddelina, however, tripped it lightly, and
Emily, as she looked on the happy group, lost the sense of her
misfortunes in that of a benevolent pleasure. But the pensive
melancholy of her mind returned, as she sat rather apart from the
company, listening to the mellow music, which the breeze softened as it
bore it away, and watching the moon, stealing its tremulous light over
the waves and on the woody summits of the cliffs, that wound along
these Tuscan shores.
Meanwhile, Bertrand was so well pleased with his first flask, that he
very willingly commenced the attack on a second, and it was late before
Emily, not without some apprehension, returned to the cottage.
After this evening, she frequently walked with Maddelina, but was never
unattended by Bertrand; and her mind became by degrees as tranquil as
the circumstances of her situation would permit. The quiet, in which
she was suffered to live, encouraged her to hope, that she was not sent
hither with an evil design; and, had it not appeared probable, that
Valancourt was at this time an inhabitant of Udolpho, she would have
wished to remain at the cottage, till an opportunity should offer of
returning to her native country. But, concerning Montoni’s motive for
sending her into Tuscany, she was more than ever perplexed, nor could
she believe that any consideration for her safety had influenced him on
this occasion.
She had been some time at the cottage, before she recollected, that, in
the hurry of leaving Udolpho, she had forgotten the papers committed to
her by her late aunt, relative to the Languedoc estates; but, though
this remembrance occasioned her much uneasiness, she had some hope,
that, in the obscure place, where they were deposited, they would
escape the detection of Montoni.
CHAPTER VIII
My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.
I play the torturer, by small and small,
To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken.
RICHARD II
We now return, for a moment, to Venice, where Count Morano was
suffering under an accumulation of misfortunes. Soon after his arrival
in that city, he had been arrested by order of the Senate, and, without
knowing of what he was suspected, was conveyed to a place of
confinement, whither the most strenuous enquiries of his friends had
been unable to trace him. Who the enemy was, that had occasioned him
this calamity, he had not been able to guess, unless, indeed, it was
Montoni, on whom his suspicions rested, and not only with much apparent
probability, but with justice.
In the affair of the poisoned cup, Montoni had suspected Morano; but,
being unable to obtain the degree of proof, which was necessary to
convict him of a guilty intention, he had recourse to means of other
revenge, than he could hope to obtain by prosecution. He employed a
person, in whom he believed he might confide, to drop a letter of
accusation into the _Denunzie secrete_, or lions’ mouths, which are
fixed in a gallery of the Doge’s palace, as receptacles for anonymous
information, concerning persons, who may be disaffected towards the
state. As, on these occasions, the accuser is not confronted with the
accused, a man may falsely impeach his enemy, and accomplish an unjust
revenge, without fear of punishment, or detection. That Montoni should
have recourse to these diabolical means of ruining a person, whom he
suspected of having attempted his life, is not in the least surprising.
In the letter, which he had employed as the instrument of his revenge,
he accused Morano of designs against the state, which he attempted to
prove, with all the plausible simplicity of which he was master; and
the Senate, with whom a suspicion was, at that time, almost equal to a
proof, arrested the Count, in consequence of this accusation; and,
without even hinting to him his crime, threw him into one of those
secret prisons, which were the terror of the Venetians, and in which
persons often languished, and sometimes died, without being discovered
by their friends.