The Mysteries of Udolpho

Lady Blanche, it being not yet dark, took this opportunity of exploring

new scenes, and, leaving the parlour, she passed from the hall into

a wide gallery, whose walls were decorated by marble pilasters, which

supported an arched roof, composed of a rich mosaic work. Through a

distant window, that seemed to terminate the gallery, were seen the

purple clouds of evening and a landscape, whose features, thinly veiled

in twilight, no longer appeared distinctly, but, blended into one grand

mass, stretched to the horizon, coloured only with a tint of solemn

grey.

The gallery terminated in a saloon, to which the window she had seen

through an open door, belonged; but the increasing dusk permitted her

only an imperfect view of this apartment, which seemed to be magnificent

and of modern architecture; though it had been either suffered to fall

into decay, or had never been properly finished. The windows, which were

numerous and large, descended low, and afforded a very extensive, and

what Blanche's fancy represented to be, a very lovely prospect; and

she stood for some time, surveying the grey obscurity and depicturing

imaginary woods and mountains, vallies and rivers, on this scene of

night; her solemn sensations rather assisted, than interrupted, by the

distant bark of a watch-dog, and by the breeze, as it trembled upon the

light foliage of the shrubs.

Now and then, appeared for a moment, among

the woods, a cottage light; and, at length, was heard, afar off, the

evening bell of a convent, dying on the air. When she withdrew her

thoughts from these subjects of fanciful delight, the gloom and silence

of the saloon somewhat awed her; and, having sought the door of the

gallery, and pursued, for a considerable time, a dark passage, she came

to a hall, but one totally different from that she had formerly seen.

By the twilight, admitted through an open portico, she could just

distinguish this apartment to be of very light and airy architecture,

and that it was paved with white marble, pillars of which supported the

roof, that rose into arches built in the Moorish style. While Blanche

stood on the steps of this portico, the moon rose over the sea, and

gradually disclosed, in partial light, the beauties of the eminence, on

which she stood, whence a lawn, now rude and overgrown with high grass,

sloped to the woods, that, almost surrounding the chateau, extended in a

grand sweep down the southern sides of the promontory to the very margin

of the ocean. Beyond the woods, on the north-side, appeared a long tract

of the plains of Languedoc; and, to the east, the landscape she had

before dimly seen, with the towers of a monastery, illumined by the

moon, rising over dark groves.