The Mysteries of Udolpho

Emily was too much shocked by these reflections on her father's memory,

to despise this speech as it deserved. Madame Montoni was about to speak, but Emily quitted the room, and

retired to her own, where the little spirit she had lately exerted

yielded to grief and vexation, and left her only to her tears. From

every review of her situation she could derive, indeed, only new sorrow.

To the discovery, which had just been forced upon her, of Montoni's

unworthiness, she had now to add, that of the cruel vanity, for the

gratification of which her aunt was about to sacrifice her; of the

effrontery and cunning, with which, at the time that she meditated the

sacrifice, she boasted of her tenderness, or insulted her victim; and of

the venomous envy, which, as it did not scruple to attack her father's

character, could scarcely be expected to withhold from her own.

During the few days that intervened between this conversation and the

departure for Miarenti, Montoni did not once address himself to Emily.

His looks sufficiently declared his resentment; but that he should

forbear to renew a mention of the subject of it, exceedingly surprised

her, who was no less astonished, that, during three days, Count Morano

neither visited Montoni, or was named by him. Several conjectures arose

in her mind. Sometimes she feared that the dispute between them had been

revived, and had ended fatally to the Count. Sometimes she was inclined

to hope, that weariness, or disgust at her firm rejection of his suit

had induced him to relinquish it; and, at others, she suspected that

he had now recourse to stratagem, and forbore his visits, and prevailed

with Montoni to forbear the repetition of his name, in the expectation

that gratitude and generosity would prevail with her to give him the

consent, which he could not hope from love.

Thus passed the time in vain conjecture, and alternate hopes and fears,

till the day arrived when Montoni was to set out for the villa of

Miarenti, which, like the preceding ones, neither brought the Count, or

the mention of him

. Montoni having determined not to leave Venice, till towards evening,

that he might avoid the heats, and catch the cool breezes of night,

embarked about an hour before sun-set, with his family, in a barge, for

the Brenta. Emily sat alone near the stern of the vessel, and, as it

floated slowly on, watched the gay and lofty city lessening from her

view, till its palaces seemed to sink in the distant waves, while its

loftier towers and domes, illumined by the declining sun, appeared on

the horizon, like those far-seen clouds which, in more northern climes,

often linger on the western verge, and catch the last light of a

summer's evening. Soon after, even these grew dim, and faded in distance

from her sight; but she still sat gazing on the vast scene of

cloudless sky, and mighty waters, and listening in pleasing awe to

the deep-sounding waves, while, as her eyes glanced over the Adriatic,

towards the opposite shores, which were, however, far beyond the reach

of sight, she thought of Greece, and, a thousand classical remembrances

stealing to her mind, she experienced that pensive luxury which is felt

on viewing the scenes of ancient story, and on comparing their present

state of silence and solitude with that of their former grandeur and

animation. The scenes of the Illiad illapsed in glowing colours to her

fancy--scenes, once the haunt of heroes--now lonely, and in ruins;

but which still shone, in the poet's strain, in all their youthful

splendour.