The Mysteries of Udolpho

When her spirits had overcome the first shock of her situation, she

held up the lamp to examine, if the chamber afforded a possibility of an

escape. It was a spacious room, whose walls, wainscoted with rough oak,

shewed no casement but the grated one, which Emily had left, and no

other door than that, by which she had entered. The feeble rays of the

lamp, however, did not allow her to see at once its full extent; she

perceived no furniture, except, indeed, an iron chair, fastened in the

centre of the chamber, immediately over which, depending on a chain from

the ceiling, hung an iron ring. Having gazed upon these, for some time,

with wonder and horror, she next observed iron bars below, made for the

purpose of confining the feet, and on the arms of the chair were rings

of the same metal.

As she continued to survey them, she concluded, that

they were instruments of torture, and it struck her, that some poor

wretch had once been fastened in this chair, and had there been starved

to death. She was chilled by the thought; but, what was her agony, when,

in the next moment, it occurred to her, that her aunt might have been

one of these victims, and that she herself might be the next! An acute

pain seized her head, she was scarcely able to hold the lamp, and,

looking round for support, was seating herself, unconsciously, in the

iron chair itself; but suddenly perceiving where she was, she started

from it in horror, and sprung towards a remote end of the room. Here

again she looked round for a seat to sustain her, and perceived only a

dark curtain, which, descending from the ceiling to the floor, was drawn

along the whole side of the chamber. Ill as she was, the appearance of

this curtain struck her, and she paused to gaze upon it, in wonder and

apprehension.

It seemed to conceal a recess of the chamber; she wished, yet dreaded,

to lift it, and to discover what it veiled: twice she was withheld by

a recollection of the terrible spectacle her daring hand had formerly

unveiled in an apartment of the castle, till, suddenly conjecturing,

that it concealed the body of her murdered aunt, she seized it, in a fit

of desperation, and drew it aside. Beyond, appeared a corpse, stretched

on a kind of low couch, which was crimsoned with human blood, as was

the floor beneath. The features, deformed by death, were ghastly and

horrible, and more than one livid wound appeared in the face. Emily,

bending over the body, gazed, for a moment, with an eager, frenzied eye;

but, in the next, the lamp dropped from her hand, and she fell senseless

at the foot of the couch.