The Mysteries of Udolpho

Cavigni, meanwhile, informed her of the names of the noblemen to whom

the several villas they passed belonged, adding light sketches of their

characters, such as served to amuse rather than to inform, exhibiting

his own wit instead of the delineation of truth. Emily was sometimes

diverted by his conversation; but his gaiety did not entertain Madame

Montoni, as it had formerly done; she was frequently grave, and Montoni

retained his usual reserve.

Nothing could exceed Emily's admiration on her first view of Venice,

with its islets, palaces, and towers rising out of the sea, whose clear

surface reflected the tremulous picture in all its colours. The sun,

sinking in the west, tinted the waves and the lofty mountains of Friuli,

which skirt the northern shores of the Adriatic, with a saffron glow,

while on the marble porticos and colonnades of St. Mark were thrown

the rich lights and shades of evening. As they glided on, the grander

features of this city appeared more distinctly: its terraces, crowned

with airy yet majestic fabrics, touched, as they now were, with the

splendour of the setting sun, appeared as if they had been called up

from the ocean by the wand of an enchanter, rather than reared by mortal

hands.

The sun, soon after, sinking to the lower world, the shadow of the earth

stole gradually over the waves, and then up the towering sides of the

mountains of Friuli, till it extinguished even the last upward beams

that had lingered on their summits, and the melancholy purple of evening

drew over them, like a thin veil. How deep, how beautiful was the

tranquillity that wrapped the scene! All nature seemed to repose; the

finest emotions of the soul were alone awake. Emily's eyes filled with

tears of admiration and sublime devotion, as she raised them over the

sleeping world to the vast heavens, and heard the notes of solemn

music, that stole over the waters from a distance. She listened in still

rapture, and no person of the party broke the charm by an enquiry. The

sounds seemed to grow on the air; for so smoothly did the barge glide

along, that its motion was not perceivable, and the fairy city appeared

approaching to welcome the strangers. They now distinguished a female

voice, accompanied by a few instruments, singing a soft and mournful

air; and its fine expression, as sometimes it seemed pleading with the

impassioned tenderness of love, and then languishing into the cadence

of hopeless grief, declared, that it flowed from no feigned sensibility.

Ah! thought Emily, as she sighed and remembered Valancourt, those

strains come from the heart!