Emily was too much shocked by these reflections on her father's memory,
to despise this speech as it deserved. Madame Montoni was about to speak, but Emily quitted the room, and
retired to her own, where the little spirit she had lately exerted
yielded to grief and vexation, and left her only to her tears. From
every review of her situation she could derive, indeed, only new sorrow.
To the discovery, which had just been forced upon her, of Montoni's
unworthiness, she had now to add, that of the cruel vanity, for the
gratification of which her aunt was about to sacrifice her; of the
effrontery and cunning, with which, at the time that she meditated the
sacrifice, she boasted of her tenderness, or insulted her victim; and of
the venomous envy, which, as it did not scruple to attack her father's
character, could scarcely be expected to withhold from her own.
During the few days that intervened between this conversation and the
departure for Miarenti, Montoni did not once address himself to Emily.
His looks sufficiently declared his resentment; but that he should
forbear to renew a mention of the subject of it, exceedingly surprised
her, who was no less astonished, that, during three days, Count Morano
neither visited Montoni, or was named by him. Several conjectures arose
in her mind. Sometimes she feared that the dispute between them had been
revived, and had ended fatally to the Count. Sometimes she was inclined
to hope, that weariness, or disgust at her firm rejection of his suit
had induced him to relinquish it; and, at others, she suspected that
he had now recourse to stratagem, and forbore his visits, and prevailed
with Montoni to forbear the repetition of his name, in the expectation
that gratitude and generosity would prevail with her to give him the
consent, which he could not hope from love.
Thus passed the time in vain conjecture, and alternate hopes and fears,
till the day arrived when Montoni was to set out for the villa of
Miarenti, which, like the preceding ones, neither brought the Count, or
the mention of him
. Montoni having determined not to leave Venice, till towards evening,
that he might avoid the heats, and catch the cool breezes of night,
embarked about an hour before sun-set, with his family, in a barge, for
the Brenta. Emily sat alone near the stern of the vessel, and, as it
floated slowly on, watched the gay and lofty city lessening from her
view, till its palaces seemed to sink in the distant waves, while its
loftier towers and domes, illumined by the declining sun, appeared on
the horizon, like those far-seen clouds which, in more northern climes,
often linger on the western verge, and catch the last light of a
summer's evening. Soon after, even these grew dim, and faded in distance
from her sight; but she still sat gazing on the vast scene of
cloudless sky, and mighty waters, and listening in pleasing awe to
the deep-sounding waves, while, as her eyes glanced over the Adriatic,
towards the opposite shores, which were, however, far beyond the reach
of sight, she thought of Greece, and, a thousand classical remembrances
stealing to her mind, she experienced that pensive luxury which is felt
on viewing the scenes of ancient story, and on comparing their present
state of silence and solitude with that of their former grandeur and
animation. The scenes of the Illiad illapsed in glowing colours to her
fancy--scenes, once the haunt of heroes--now lonely, and in ruins;
but which still shone, in the poet's strain, in all their youthful
splendour.