The Gloomy Dinner
The meal is comfortless and silent; even Cavigni’s gay countenance is shadowed, and Montoni is brooding and taciturn. Conversation turns on the Italian wars, the Venetian armies, and their generals. After the servants withdraw, Emily learns that the cavalier wounded by Orsino has died and that search for his murderer continues. Montoni, visibly disturbed, inquires where Orsino has hidden, then regrets the question when he realises how suspicious the man is. Emily soon retires with her aunt, leaving the men to their secret councils under Montoni’s warning frowns.
Reflections on the Ramparts
On the ramparts Emily walks in silence beside her aunt, struggling against the impulse to unburden herself of the terrible vision. A presentiment that her fate is bound to this castle presses upon her, and she vows not to accelerate it. Gazing at the massy walls, she thinks of the place as a prison, and her thoughts turn painfully to her distant home and to Valancourt, whose faithful love remains her only solace. She turns aside to hide the tears that start to her eyes.
The Condottieri Pass
Madame Montoni pauses to question peasants repairing a breach with a heap of stones and a rusted cannon, then proceeds toward a lofty arch and watch-tower. From the rampart she spies a long train of horse and foot winding along a distant mountain, their arms glinting in the sun. Alarmed, she sends Emily to summon Montoni, who brings his guests out to observe. Cavigni conjectures the force to be a legion of condottieri on the march toward Modena. Montoni reads their trumpet and cymbal signals as harmless, and the great cavalcade files past the castle without stopping, leaving him in thoughtful silence as he turns indoors.
The Lonely Chamber
Still too shaken to endure her chamber’s solitude, Emily lingers on the ramparts until evening. Finding Madame Montoni withdrawn and in low spirits, she passes alone through the long galleries, her failing lamp barely holding against the draft. Glancing fearfully at the door of the morning’s haunted chamber, she hears what may be murmuring within but does not pause. In her own room she reads by the dying flame, awaiting Annette, her unease sharpened by the nearness of the horror and the knowledge that someone entered the apartment the previous night. Her light nearly spent, she opens the door and sees Annette and another servant approaching with a candle.
Annette’s Tales
Emily asks Annette what delayed her and requests a fire. Annette reports that she made the enquiry as bidden, but no one knows anything; old Carlo looked strangely and asked repeatedly whether she was sure the door had ever been unfastened. Annette declares she would no more sleep in the chamber than on the great cannon at the end of the east rampart, for it is said that something has been seen in the dead of night standing beside it to guard it. Emily laughs at her credulity, and Annette, eager to be believed, urges her to look out at the very cannon. Emily, fearing to overtax her with idle terrors, changes the subject to Venetian regattas, but Annette soon turns to Ludovico and the story of the terrible picture with the black veil, confessing that she herself once tried to reach the door of the chamber that holds it but found it locked.
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI depicts a night of mounting terror for Emily at Montoni’s castle, as she questions Annette about the mysterious chamber, learns of Count Morano’s sudden midnight arrival, discovers Madame Montoni in private distress, contemplates the haunting miniature of her father, and finally endures a harrowing intrusion when Morano himself enters her chamber to declare his love and denounce Montoni’s villainy.
Emily Questions Annette
Emily presses Annette with questions about the chamber, discovering that Annette entered it shortly after Emily’s own visit. While Annette’s account contains falsehoods, fragments resembling the truth occasionally surface. Emily concludes that Annette and her informer remain ignorant of the true horror surrounding the room.
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