# XXII explained — The Haunted Hotel

> Chapter companion for The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins.

## What happens

Alone in her hotel room in Venice, Agnes Lockwood unpacks and struggles with restless thoughts, including a newfound bitterness toward the dead Lord Montbarry and tender feelings for Henry Westwick. After midnight, she falls asleep but wakes to find the Countess Narona mysteriously present in her room, seemingly in a torpor. As Agnes reaches for the bell, she sees a severed human head hovering in midair above her—a horrifying apparition that leaves her paralyzed with terror.

## Themes in this chapter

### Supernatural and the Unknown

The severed head appears silently and inexplicably, hovering in midair, defying natural explanation and plunging Agnes into supernatural terror.

### Madness and Psychological Torment

Agnes's emotional turmoil—shame over her feelings for Henry, bitterness toward Montbarry—and the Countess's torpor suggest psychological distress and haunting.

### Deception and Secrets

The Countess's unexplained presence in Agnes's room hints at hidden motives and secrets surrounding the hotel and its past.

## Character check-ins

### Agnes Lockwood

Alone in her room at night, Agnes unpacks, battles conflicting emotions about Lord Montbarry and Henry Westwick, and is terrorized by the apparition of a severed head.

### Countess Narona

Mysteriously appears in Agnes's room, reclining in a chair in a deathlike torpor, insensible to sound or touch.

### Henry Westwick

Presiding image in Agnes's memory; she dwells on his devotion and feels the pain of their separation.

### Lord Montbarry

Dead; Agnes recalls his broken faith and feels a new, harsh sense of the wrong she suffered.

## Key lines

> What lurking temptations to forbidden tenderness find their hiding-places in a woman's dressing-gown, when she is alone in her room at night!

Agnes reflects on how solitude and night-time privacy can stir forbidden romantic feelings.

_Highlights Agnes's internal conflict between her loyalty to the dead Montbarry and her growing affection for Henry Westwick._

> She was not alone in her room! There—in the chair at the bedside—there, suddenly revealed under the flow of light from the candle, was the figure of a woman, reclining.

Agnes discovers the Countess Narona has entered her room without permission and is sitting in a chair by the bed.

_Marks the beginning of the supernatural encounter and the Countess's mysterious intrusion._

> Midway between her face and the ceiling, there hovered a human head—severed at the neck, like a head struck from the body by the guillotine.

Agnes sees a disembodied human head floating in the air above her bed.

_The central supernatural event of the chapter, evoking horror and the macabre._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_haunted_hotel_se/chapters/xxii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_haunted_hotel_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_haunted_hotel_se/chapters