The Mysteries of Udolpho

Madame Montoni received with a very ill grace, the compliments of

the Signors. She disliked them, because they were the friends of her

husband; hated them, because she believed they had contributed to detain

him abroad till so late an hour of the preceding morning; and envied

them, since, conscious of her own want of influence, she was convinced,

that he preferred their society to her own. The rank of Count Morano

procured him that distinction which she refused to the rest of the

company. The haughty sullenness of her countenance and manner, and the

ostentatious extravagance of her dress, for she had not yet adopted

the Venetian habit, were strikingly contrasted by the beauty, modesty,

sweetness and simplicity of Emily, who observed, with more attention

than pleasure, the party around her. The beauty and fascinating manners

of Signora Livona, however, won her involuntary regard; while the

sweetness of her accents and her air of gentle kindness awakened with

Emily those pleasing affections, which so long had slumbered.

In the cool of the evening the party embarked in Montoni's gondola, and

rowed out upon the sea. The red glow of sun-set still touched the waves,

and lingered in the west, where the melancholy gleam seemed slowly

expiring, while the dark blue of the upper aether began to twinkle with

stars. Emily sat, given up to pensive and sweet emotions. The smoothness

of the water, over which she glided, its reflected images--a new heaven

and trembling stars below the waves, with shadowy outlines of towers and

porticos, conspired with the stillness of the hour, interrupted only by

the passing wave, or the notes of distant music, to raise those emotions

to enthusiasm. As she listened to the measured sound of the oars, and to

the remote warblings that came in the breeze, her softened mind returned

to the memory of St. Aubert and to Valancourt, and tears stole to her

eyes. The rays of the moon, strengthening as the shadows deepened,

soon after threw a silvery gleam upon her countenance, which was partly

shaded by a thin black veil, and touched it with inimitable softness.

Hers was the CONTOUR of a Madona, with the sensibility of a Magdalen;

and the pensive uplifted eye, with the tear that glittered on her cheek,

confirmed the expression of the character.

The last strain of distant music now died in air, for the gondola was

far upon the waves, and the party determined to have music of their own.

The Count Morano, who sat next to Emily, and who had been observing her

for some time in silence, snatched up a lute, and struck the chords

with the finger of harmony herself, while his voice, a fine tenor,

accompanied them in a rondeau full of tender sadness. To him, indeed,

might have been applied that beautiful exhortation of an English poet,

had it then existed: