Emily listened in vain for the name of Valancourt. Madame Montoni spoke
in her turn of the delights of Venice, and of the pleasure she expected
from visiting the fine castle of Montoni, on the Apennine; which latter
mention, at least, was merely a retaliating boast, for Emily well knew,
that her aunt had no taste for solitary grandeur, and, particularly,
for such as the castle of Udolpho promised. Thus the party continued to
converse, and, as far as civility would permit, to torture each other
by mutual boasts, while they reclined on sofas in the portico, and were
environed with delights both from nature and art, by which any honest
minds would have been tempered to benevolence, and happy imaginations
would have been soothed into enchantment.
The dawn, soon after, trembled in the eastern horizon, and the light
tints of morning, gradually expanding, shewed the beautifully declining
forms of the Italian mountains and the gleaming landscapes, stretched
at their feet. Then the sun-beams, shooting up from behind the hills,
spread over the scene that fine saffron tinge, which seems to impart
repose to all it touches. The landscape no longer gleamed; all its
glowing colours were revealed, except that its remoter features were
still softened and united in the mist of distance, whose sweet effect
was heightened to Emily by the dark verdure of the pines and cypresses,
that over-arched the foreground of the river.
The market people, passing with their boats to Venice, now formed a
moving picture on the Brenta. Most of these had little painted awnings,
to shelter their owners from the sun-beams, which, together with
the piles of fruit and flowers, displayed beneath, and the tasteful
simplicity of the peasant girls, who watched the rural treasures,
rendered them gay and striking objects. The swift movement of the boats
down the current, the quick glance of oars in the water, and now and
then the passing chorus of peasants, who reclined under the sail of
their little bark, or the tones of some rustic instrument, played by
a girl, as she sat near her sylvan cargo, heightened the animation and
festivity of the scene.
When Montoni and M. Quesnel had joined the ladies, the party left
the portico for the gardens, where the charming scenery soon withdrew
Emily's thoughts from painful subjects. The majestic forms and rich
verdure of cypresses she had never seen so perfect before: groves of
cedar, lemon, and orange, the spiry clusters of the pine and poplar, the
luxuriant chesnut and oriental plane, threw all their pomp of shade over
these gardens; while bowers of flowering myrtle and other spicy shrubs
mingled their fragrance with that of flowers, whose vivid and various
colouring glowed with increased effect beneath the contrasted umbrage of
the groves. The air also was continually refreshed by rivulets, which,
with more taste than fashion, had been suffered to wander among the
green recesses.