The Mysteries of Udolpho

Reception by the Quesnels

M. and Madame Quesnel receive St. Aubert with stately politeness, offering only perfunctory condolences before seemingly forgetting they ever had a sister. Emily feels tears of resentment rise within her, while St. Aubert maintains calm dignity that unintentionally unsettles Quesnel. Madame Quesnel informs Emily that a large dinner party is expected and insists that past grief should not prevent present festivity.

Italian Guests at Dinner

Among the dinner guests are two Italian gentlemen: Signor Montoni, a handsome man of forty with commanding features and quick discernment, and Signor Cavigni, younger but equally penetrating, superior in persuasive manner. Montoni discusses Italian political turmoil with passion, while Cavigni boasts of Venetian superiority, then smoothly flatters the French ladies with praise of Parisian fashions and opera. Their attention sometimes turns to Emily, whose modesty and simplicity form a stark contrast to her female companions.

St. Aubert’s Nostalgic Reflections

During dinner, St. Aubert slips away to revisit the old chestnut tree that Quesnel threatens to cut down. Standing beneath its shade, surrounded by memories of his early days and departed friends, he contemplates the solitude of his current existence, with only Emily remaining as his emotional anchor. The recollection of his dying wife forces him to flee back to the social gathering.

Gradual Recovery from Grief

Time gradually softens Emily’s acute grief, transforming its harshness into a sacred tenderness she cherishes. However, St. Aubert visibly declines in health, weakened by the fever he never fully recovered from and devastated by his wife’s death. Emily, constantly at his side, fails to notice his deterioration until it becomes undeniable.

Physician’s Travel Prescription

The physician prescribes travel for St. Aubert, recognizing that sorrow has attacked his already-weakened nerves. He believes that variety of scene and mental amusement will restore him to proper health. St. Aubert accepts the prescription and determines to journey leisurely along the Mediterranean coast toward Languedoc and Provence.

Preparations for Departure

Emily prepares to accompany her father on the journey while St. Aubert takes measures to reduce expenses, including dismissing all but the old housekeeper Theresa. When Emily questions this economy, citing her father’s infirmities, he explains simply that they face an expensive excursion. On the eve of departure, Emily stays up past midnight gathering her belongings.

Emily’s Discovery of the Secret Portrait

While collecting drawing instruments late at night, Emily discovers her father in the closet of his chambers, reading papers by candlelight while weeping aloud. He kneels in prayer with a wild, almost horrified expression, then retrieves a small case containing a miniature portrait—not of his late wife, but of another woman. St. Aubert gazes upon it with evident tenderness, pressing it to his lips and heart with convulsive sighs. Emily, watching unseen through the glass panes, realizes her father harbors a secret sorrow and a mysterious portrait she never knew existed, before withdrawing before she is discovered.

CHAPTER III

St. Aubert, departing with Emily in search of health, chooses a winding mountain road over the Pyrenees rather than the more direct route to Languedoc, and pauses first to take leave of his friend M. Barreaux, whom he finds botanizing near his château and whose expression of regret at the parting proves unexpectedly deep. As the travelers ascend, St. Aubert turns repeatedly to look back at his château in the plain below until distance blurs it into the landscape, while Emily yields by degrees to the grandeur of the pine forests, the vast plains enriched with vines, almonds, palms, and olives, and the majestic Garonne winding toward the Bay of Biscay. Provided with food, M. Barreaux’s botanical treatise, classical poets, and Emily’s sketching pencil, they stop at a cliff-top spring shaded by palms, where St. Aubert is moved to sudden tears by the resemblance of the prospect to a favorite view of his late wife; the moment overcomes him and he walks away to grieve unseen. After the muleteer Michael rattles at breakneck pace along the edge of a precipice following his devotions at a roadside cross, terrifying Emily nearly to fainting, the travelers enter a narrow, savage valley that St. Aubert compares to a canvas of Salvator Rosa, his hand instinctively upon his arms in expectation of banditti. As twilight gathers and Michael’s melancholy vesper-hymn fails to lift their spirits, they are startled by the report of fire-arms and met by a courteous young stranger in hunter’s dress, with dogs and a horn, who offers to guide them to a nearby hamlet and whose company they welcome as darkness falls. Reaching a village devoid of any inn, they find the cottages shockingly primitive, with families sleeping on dried beech leaves and skins beside their mules and pigs; the stranger, with quiet gallantry, insists on surrendering his own decent bed to the invalid St. Aubert rather than to Emily, a choice that surprises the older man but draws from his daughter an animated smile of grateful tenderness.