Meanwhile, the latter, whose pride at least enabled him to
despise such vanity as this, and whose discernment at once detected
under this assumed pity, the frivolous malignity of Quesnel’s mind,
listened to him in contemptuous silence, till he named his niece, and
then they left the portico, and walked away into the gardens. Emily, however, still attended to Madame Quesnel, who spoke of France
(for even the name of her native country was dear to her) and she found
some pleasure in looking at a person, who had lately been in it. That
country, too, was inhabited by Valancourt, and she listened to the
mention of it, with a faint hope, that he also would be named. Madame
Quesnel, who, when she was in France, had talked with rapture of Italy,
now, that she was in Italy, talked with equal praise of France, and
endeavoured to excite the wonder and the envy of her auditors by
accounts of places, which they had not been happy enough to see. In
these descriptions she not only imposed upon them, but upon herself,
for she never thought a present pleasure equal to one, that was passed;
and thus the delicious climate, the fragrant orangeries and all the
luxuries, which surrounded her, slept unnoticed, while her fancy
wandered over the distant scenes of a northern country. 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, showed the beautifully declining
forms of the Italian mountains and the gleaming landscapes, stretched
at their feet. Then the sunbeams, 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 sunbeams, 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. Emily often lingered behind the party, to contemplate the distant
landscape, that closed a vista, or that gleamed beneath the dark
foliage of the foreground;—the spiral summits of the mountains, touched
with a purple tint, broken and steep above, but shelving gradually to
their base; the open valley, marked by no formal lines of art; and the
tall groves of cypress, pine and poplar, sometimes embellished by a
ruined villa, whose broken columns appeared between the branches of a
pine, that seemed to droop over their fall. From other parts of the gardens, the character of the view was entirely
changed, and the fine solitary beauty of the landscape shifted for the
crowded features and varied colouring of inhabitation. The sun was now gaining fast upon the sky, and the party quitted the
gardens, and retired to repose. CHAPTER IV

And poor Misfortune feels the lash of Vice. THOMSON


Emily seized the first opportunity of conversing alone with Mons. Quesnel, concerning La Vallée. His answers to her enquiries were
concise, and delivered with the air of a man, who is conscious of
possessing absolute power and impatient of hearing it questioned. He
declared, that the disposal of the place was a necessary measure; and
that she might consider herself indebted to his prudence for even the
small income that remained for her. “But, however,” added he, “when
this Venetian Count (I have forgot his name) marries you, your present
disagreeable state of dependence will cease. As a relation to you I
rejoice in the circumstance, which is so fortunate for you, and, I may
add, so unexpected by your friends.” For some moments Emily was chilled
into silence by this speech; and, when she attempted to undeceive him,
concerning the purport of the note she had inclosed in Montoni’s
letter, he appeared to have some private reason for disbelieving her
assertion, and, for a considerable time, persevered in accusing her of
capricious conduct. Being, at length, however, convinced that she
really disliked Morano and had positively rejected his suit, his
resentment was extravagant, and he expressed it in terms equally
pointed and inhuman; for, secretly flattered by the prospect of a
connection with a nobleman, whose title he had affected to forget, he
was incapable of feeling pity for whatever sufferings of his niece
might stand in the way of his ambition. Emily saw at once in his manner all the difficulties, that awaited her,
and, though no oppression could have power to make her renounce
Valancourt for Morano, her fortitude now trembled at an encounter with
the violent passions of her uncle.