Valancourt at Marchioness Champfort’s Assemblies
Another figure in Parisian society is Marchioness Champfort, a young widow who is handsome, artful, gay, and fond of intrigue. The society she draws around her is less elegant and more vicious than the Countess Lacleur’s circle, but she possesses enough address to throw at least a slight veil over her worst character traits. She is still visited by many persons of distinction. Valancourt is introduced to her parties by two of his brother officers whose late ridicule he has now forgiven sufficiently to sometimes join in the laughter their mention of his former manners would renew.
Valancourt’s Perilous Circumstances
The gaiety of Europe’s most splendid court, the magnificence of palaces, entertainments, and equipages surrounding him, all conspire to dazzle his imagination and reanimate his spirits, while the example and maxims of his military associates delude his mind. Although Emily’s image still lives within him, it is no longer the friend and monitor that saved him from himself, to which he retreated to weep sweet, melancholy tears of tenderness. When he has recourse to it now, it assumes a countenance of mild reproach that wrings his soul and calls forth tears of unmixed misery. His only escape is to forget the object of his grief. The chapter ends with Valancourt in this dangerously precarious state, while Emily suffers at Venice from Count Morano’s persecuting addresses and Montoni’s unjust authority.
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX returns the narrative from the gay scenes of Paris to the gloomy Apennine, where Emily endures confinement under Montoni’s tyranny, her aunt’s bitter disputes, Annette’s superstitious terrors, and mounting dread as armed strangers gather at the castle.
Emily’s Faithful Thoughts of Valancourt
Emily’s Faithful Thoughts of Valancourt
Back in the Apennine, Emily turns to Valancourt as her only hope, carefully revisiting every assurance of his affection, re-reading his letters, weighing each word that speaks of attachment, and drying her tears as she trusts in his truth.
Montoni’s Inquiry and Madame Montoni’s Confinement
Montoni’s Inquiry and Madame Montoni’s Confinement
Montoni makes strict but fruitless enquiry into the strange alarm at the castle, ultimately dismissing it as a servant’s mischief. Meanwhile, disagreements with Madame Montoni over her settlements grow sharper; he confines her entirely to her apartment and threatens greater severity should she persist in refusing.
Madame Montoni’s Spirit of Revenge
Madame Montoni’s Spirit of Revenge
Madame Montoni, guided not by reason but by the spirit of revenge, opposes Montoni’s violence with her own obstinacy, heedless of the danger such defiance provokes in a man of his character and power.
Emily soothes her Aunt
Emily soothes her Aunt
Wholly confined to her solitude, Madame Montoni comes to crave the society she had previously spurned, and Emily—her only permitted companion besides Annette—patiently persuades and soothes her, softening her aunt’s pride with gentle attentions.
Emily’s Reflections on Montoni’s Character
Emily’s Reflections on Montoni’s Character
Emily, exhausted by witnessing scenes of terrible contention, reflects on Montoni’s fierce and varied passions, marvelling that so many contradictory energies can be concentrated in one man, and that on great occasions he can still bend them to his interest and disguise their operation behind a composed countenance.
Emily’s Present Life a Frightful Dream
Emily’s Present Life a Frightful Dream
Her present existence feels like the fevered dream of a distempered imagination or one of those frightful poetical fictions; reflection brings only regret, anticipation only terror, and she longs to “steal the lark’s wing” that Languedoc and repose might once more be hers.
News of Count Morano’s Danger
News of Count Morano’s Danger
Emily makes frequent enquiry after Count Morano and hears only vague reports that his surgeon has pronounced his wound fatal. She is shocked to think she may, however innocently, be the instrument of his death, while Annette, observing her emotion, misinterprets it in her own way.
Annette’s Alarm of Murder
Annette’s Alarm of Murder
Annette bursts into Emily’s chamber in great agitation, certain that strangers arriving at the castle mean murder. She cites the mysterious preparations, Montoni’s cruel treatment of his wife, his strange altered manner, and Ludovico’s hint that the nightly councils concern something far weightier than any young lady.
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