The Mysteries of Udolpho

St. Aubert Observes Valancourt and Emily’s Bond

As St. Aubert lingers to examine wild plants, he often looks forward with pleasure to Emily and Valancourt strolling together—Valancourt pointing out grand features of the scenery with animated delight, and Emily listening with tender seriousness. They appear like two lovers whose situation has secluded them from the frivolities of common life, whose ideas are simple and grand like the landscapes around them. St. Aubert reflects on how the world ridicules genuine passion, how virtue and taste are nearly the same, and how love cannot exist in a heart that has lost the meek dignity of innocence.

Lost in the Mountain Wood

Near noon, the travelers arrive at steep, dangerous road and choose to walk through refreshing shade instead of following the carriage. The woody recesses offer dewy coolness, bright verdure, fragrant flowers and herbs, and grand pines, beeches, and chestnuts. Sometimes the thick foliage excludes all view; at others, partial glimpses of distant scenery inspire the imagination. As they saunter under the trees following the road’s direction, they perceive they have totally lost it, while the road wound far away over the cliff above. Valancourt calls loudly to Michael but hears only his own echoes.

Visit to the Shepherd’s Cabin

Valancourt bounds ahead to a shepherd’s cabin, where he finds only two little children at play on the turf before the door. The eldest boy tells him their father is with his flocks and their mother has gone down into the vale but will return shortly. St. Aubert and Emily approach the cottage and rest on a rustic bench between two pines, observing the picture of infantine simplicity, which brings remembrance of St. Aubert’s own lost boys and their lamented mother. Emily sings one of his favorite simple airs to dispel his melancholy, and Valancourt pauses at a distance to listen before joining them.

Valancourt Locates Michael and Plans an Ascent

Valancourt endeavors to make his way through the thicket that clothes the steeps, following the direction of Michael’s roaring voice echoing among the cliffs. After much struggle over brambles and precipices, he reaches Michael and prevails upon him to be silent and listen. Since the carriage is far away and climbing the long, steep road would be very fatiguing for St. Aubert, Valancourt is anxious to find a more easy ascent by the way he has passed. He returns to the carriage for refreshments and proposes removing higher to where the woods open upon a grand prospect.

The Grieving Shepherd’s Wife and Stolen Sheep

A young woman joins the children and weeps over them, which stops the travelers. She explains that her husband, a shepherd who lives in the mountains during summer to watch over his master’s flocks, lost his little all the preceding night—gang of gypsies drove away several sheep. Her husband Jacques had saved money to buy a few sheep of his own, and now they must go to his master for those stolen. Worse, their master, a hard man, will likely trust Jacques no longer with the care of his flocks, leaving the family in desperate circumstances.

Valancourt Gives His Savings to the Shepherd

St. Aubert and Emily give money to the shepherd’s wife, but Valancourt lingers behind, asking how much more is needed to replace the stolen sheep. Learning it is a sum very close to all he has, he faces a dilemma: whether to give the money and struggle to reach home with little remaining, or keep it for his own journey. When the shepherd himself appears with a forlorn and melancholy look, Valancourt immediately throws down all his money except a few louis, bounded away after St. Aubert and Emily. His heart has seldom felt so light, and every object appears more interesting and beautiful than before.

Summit Panorama of the Pyrenees and Rousillon

The party reaches a shady summit where a magnificent panorama unfolds. Behind them, rock rises perpendicularly in a massy wall, branching into overhanging crags grey-tinted and brightened by wild flowers in their fractured sides. Below, steep slopes are fringed with alpine shrubs, and lower still appear the tufted tops of chestnut woods, among which the shepherd’s cottage peeps forth with its bluish smoke curling high. Majestic Pyrenees summits display tremendous marble crags changing with varying lights, while their steeps are covered with forests of pine, larch, and oak. Through a vista appears the lowlands of Rousillon tinted with blue haze, uniting with the Mediterranean waters, where a lonely beacon marks the shore and distant sails glisten in sunlight.