Mutual Boasts in the Portico
Madame Montoni joins the exchange by praising the delights of Venice and the pleasure she anticipates from visiting Montoni’s castle on the Apennine—a boast Emily recognizes as mere retaliation, since her aunt has no genuine taste for solitary grandeur. The party continues to trade these “mutual boasts” while reclining on sofas in the portico, each trying to torment the others with stories of superior pleasures, even as nature and art combine around them in scenes that should inspire benevolence and enchant honest minds.
The Dawn over the Italian Mountains
The dawn soon trembles in the eastern horizon, and the growing light gradually reveals the beautifully declining forms of the Italian mountains and the gleaming landscape spread at their feet. As the sunbeams rise from behind the hills, they wash the scene in a fine saffron tinge that seems to impart repose to everything it touches. The glowing colors of the landscape emerge fully, though the remoter features remain softened in the mist of distance—an effect Emily finds heightened by the dark verdure of the pines and cypresses that overarch the river in the foreground.
Market Boats on the Brenta
Market people now pass along the Brenta in their boats, forming a moving picture on the water. Most of the little vessels carry painted awnings sheltering their owners from the sun, and beneath them are piled fruit and flowers watched over by tastefully dressed peasant girls. The swift movement of the boats down the current, the quick flash of oars, and the passing choruses of peasants reclining under sail—or the tones of a rustic instrument played by a girl seated near her sylvan cargo—combine to give the scene a heightened animation and festivity.
A Stroll Through the Gardens
When Montoni and M. Quesnel rejoin the ladies, the whole party leaves the portico for the gardens, where the charming scenery soon lifts Emily’s thoughts from painful subjects. She sees cypresses of a majesty and richness she has never before encountered, groves of cedar, lemon, and orange, spiry clusters of pine and poplar, and the luxuriant shade of chesnut and oriental plane. Bowers of flowering myrtle and other spicy shrubs mingle their fragrance with the vivid coloring of flowers set against the dark umbrage of the groves, while rivulets—left to wander freely through the green recesses—refresh the air with a tasteful naturalness.
Emily’s Contemplations
Emily often lingers behind the party to contemplate the views: a vista closing on distant landscape, or a scene glimpsed beneath dark foreground foliage, where the spiral summits of the mountains are touched with purple, their broken, steep upper slopes shelving gradually to their bases. The open valley shows no formal lines of art, and tall groves of cypress, pine, and poplar are sometimes graced by a ruined villa whose broken columns appear between the branches of a pine that seems to droop over their fall. From other parts of the gardens the view changes entirely, the lonely beauty of the landscape giving way to the crowded features and varied coloring of inhabitation.
Return to Repose
As the sun gains fast upon the sky, the party quits the gardens and retires to repose.
CHAPITRE IV.
Chapter IV finds Emily trapped between her uncle Quesnel’s ambition, Montoni’s tyranny, and Count Morano’s persistent suit. After a failed confrontation with Quesnel at his villa along the Brenta, she is conveyed back to Venice, where Montoni issues an ultimatum demanding her marriage to Morano. While Montoni is preoccupied with harboring the fugitive Orsino following a nobleman’s assassination, Emily makes a final, fruitless appeal to both her aunt and to Morano himself. The chapter closes with Madame Montoni arriving with bridal gifts, reproaching Emily for her refusal of so advantageous a match.
Emily Confronts Monsieur Quesnel
Emily seizes the first opportunity to speak privately with Monsieur Quesnel about the disposal of La Vallée. His answers are concise and delivered with the air of a man conscious of absolute power. He declares the disposal a necessary measure and reminds her that her dependence will end when the Venetian Count marries her, calling the match fortunate and unexpected. When Emily tries to undeceive him about the note she sent through Montoni’s letter, he persists in disbelieving her and accuses her of capricious conduct.
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