The Mysteries of Udolpho

St. Aubert, whose anxiety for his wife overcame every other

consideration, detained the physician in his house. He remembered the

feelings and the reflections that had called a momentary gloom upon his

mind, on the day when he had last visited the fishing-house, in company

with Madame St. Aubert, and he now admitted a presentiment, that this

illness would be a fatal one. But he effectually concealed this from

her, and from his daughter, whom he endeavoured to re-animate with hopes

that her constant assiduities would not be unavailing. The physician,

when asked by St. Aubert for his opinion of the disorder, replied,

that the event of it depended upon circumstances which he could not

ascertain.

Madame St. Aubert seemed to have formed a more decided one;

but her eyes only gave hints of this. She frequently fixed them upon her

anxious friends with an expression of pity, and of tenderness, as if she

anticipated the sorrow that awaited them, and that seemed to say, it was

for their sakes only, for their sufferings, that she regretted life. On

the seventh day, the disorder was at its crisis. The physician assumed

a graver manner, which she observed, and took occasion, when her family

had once quitted the chamber, to tell him, that she perceived her death

was approaching. 'Do not attempt to deceive me,' said she, 'I feel that

I cannot long survive. I am prepared for the event, I have long, I hope,

been preparing for it. Since I have not long to live, do not suffer a

mistaken compassion to induce you to flatter my family with false hopes.

If you do, their affliction will only be the heavier when it arrives: I

will endeavour to teach them resignation by my example.'

The physician was affected; he promised to obey her, and told St.

Aubert, somewhat abruptly, that there was nothing to expect. The latter

was not philosopher enough to restrain his feelings when he received

this information; but a consideration of the increased affliction which

the observance of his grief would occasion his wife, enabled him,

after some time, to command himself in her presence. Emily was at first

overwhelmed with the intelligence; then, deluded by the strength of her

wishes, a hope sprung up in her mind that her mother would yet recover,

and to this she pertinaciously adhered almost to the last hour.

The progress of this disorder was marked, on the side of Madame St.

Aubert, by patient suffering, and subjected wishes. The composure, with

which she awaited her death, could be derived only from the retrospect

of a life governed, as far as human frailty permits, by a consciousness

of being always in the presence of the Deity, and by the hope of a

higher world. But her piety could not entirely subdue the grief of

parting from those whom she so dearly loved. During these her last

hours, she conversed much with St. Aubert and Emily, on the prospect of

futurity, and on other religious topics. The resignation she expressed,

with the firm hope of meeting in a future world the friends she left in

this, and the effort which sometimes appeared to conceal her sorrow at

this temporary separation, frequently affected St. Aubert so much as to

oblige him to leave the room. Having indulged his tears awhile, he would

dry them and return to the chamber with a countenance composed by an

endeavour which did but increase his grief.