The Mysteries of Udolpho

While the lady abbess ordered refreshment, and conversed with the

Countess, Blanche withdrew to a window, the lower panes of which, being

without painting, allowed her to observe the progress of the storm over

the Mediterranean, whose dark waves, that had so lately slept, now came

boldly swelling, in long succession, to the shore, where they burst in

white foam, and threw up a high spray over the rocks. A red sulphureous

tint overspread the long line of clouds, that hung above the western

horizon, beneath whose dark skirts the sun looking out, illumined the

distant shores of Languedoc, as well as the tufted summits of the nearer

woods, and shed a partial gleam on the western waves. The rest of the

scene was in deep gloom, except where a sun-beam, darting between the

clouds, glanced on the white wings of the sea-fowl, that circled high

among them, or touched the swelling sail of a vessel, which was seen

labouring in the storm. Blanche, for some time, anxiously watched the

progress of the bark, as it threw the waves in foam around it, and, as

the lightnings flashed, looked to the opening heavens, with many a sigh

for the fate of the poor mariners.

The sun, at length, set, and the heavy clouds, which had long impended,

dropped over the splendour of his course; the vessel, however, was

yet dimly seen, and Blanche continued to observe it, till the quick

succession of flashes, lighting up the gloom of the whole horizon,

warned her to retire from the window, and she joined the Abbess, who,

having exhausted all her topics of conversation with the Countess, had

now leisure to notice her.

But their discourse was interrupted by tremendous peals of thunder;

and the bell of the monastery soon after ringing out, summoned the

inhabitants to prayer. As Blanche passed the window, she gave another

look to the ocean, where, by the momentary flash, that illumined the

vast body of the waters, she distinguished the vessel she had observed

before, amidst a sea of foam, breaking the billows, the mast now bowing

to the waves, and then rising high in air.

She sighed fervently as she gazed, and then followed the Lady Abbess

and the Countess to the chapel. Meanwhile, some of the Count's servants,

having gone by land to the chateau for carriages, returned soon after

vespers had concluded, when, the storm being somewhat abated, the Count

and his family returned home. Blanche was surprised to discover how much

the windings of the shore had deceived her, concerning the distance of

the chateau from the monastery, whose vesper bell she had heard, on the

preceding evening, from the windows of the west saloon, and whose towers

she would also have seen from thence, had not twilight veiled them.