ave her the figure of Valancourt,
whom she saw on a point of the cliffs, gazing with awe and admiration
on the imagery around him; or wandering pensively along the vale
below, frequently pausing to look back upon the scenery, and then,
his countenance glowing with the poet's fire, pursuing his way to some
overhanging heights. When she again considered the time and the distance
that were to separate them, that every step she now took lengthened this
distance, her heart sunk, and the surrounding landscape charmed her no
more.
The travellers, passing Novalesa, reached, after the evening had closed,
the small and antient town of Susa, which had formerly guarded this pass
of the Alps into Piedmont. The heights which command it had, since the
invention of artillery, rendered its fortifications useless; but these
romantic heights, seen by moon-light, with the town below, surrounded
by its walls and watchtowers, and partially illumined, exhibited an
interesting picture to Emily. Here they rested for the night at an inn,
which had little accommodation to boast of; but the travellers brought
with them the hunger that gives delicious flavour to the coarsest
viands, and the weariness that ensures repose; and here Emily first
caught a strain of Italian music, on Italian ground. As she sat after
supper at a little window, that opened upon the country, observing an
effect of the moon-light on the broken surface of the mountains, and
remembering that on such a night as this she once had sat with her
father and Valancourt, resting upon a cliff of the Pyrenees, she heard
from below the long-drawn notes of a violin, of such tone and delicacy
of expression, as harmonized exactly with the tender emotions she was
indulging, and both charmed and surprised her. Cavigni, who approached
the window, smiled at her surprise. 'This is nothing extraordinary,'
said he, 'you will hear the same, perhaps, at every inn on our way. It
is one of our landlord's family who plays, I doubt not,' Emily, as she
listened, thought he could be scarcely less than a professor of music
whom she heard; and the sweet and plaintive strains soon lulled her into
a reverie, from which she was very unwillingly roused by the raillery
of Cavigni, and by the voice of Montoni, who gave orders to a servant to
have the carriages ready at an early hour on the following morning; and
added, that he meant to dine at Turin.
Madame Montoni was exceedingly rejoiced to be once more on l
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