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in the common forms and a word of recognition now and then

would have touched me in the right place。



〃Why I didn't know they were for me!〃



〃They were for both of you。  Why should I make a difference?〃



Miss Tita reflected as if she might by thinking of a reason for that;

but she failed to produce one。  Instead of this she asked abruptly;

〃Why in the world do you want to know us?〃



〃I ought after all to make a difference;〃 I replied。

〃That question is your aunt's; it isn't yours。  You wouldn't

ask it if you hadn't been put up to it。〃



〃She didn't tell me to ask you;〃 Miss Tita replied without confusion;

she was the oddest mixture of the shrinking and the direct。



〃Well; she has often wondered about it herself and expressed

her wonder to you。  She has insisted on it; so that she has

put the idea into your head that I am insufferably pushing。

Upon my word I think I have been very discreet。

And how completely your aunt must have lost every tradition

of sociability; to see anything out of the way in the idea

that respectable intelligent people; living as we do under

the same roof; should occasionally exchange a remark!

What could be more natural?  We are of the same country;

and we have at least some of the same tastes; since; like you;

I am intensely fond of Venice。〃



My interlocutress appeared incapable of grasping more than one clause

in any proposition; and she declared quickly; eagerly; as if she were

answering my whole speech:  〃I am not in the least fond of Venice。

I should like to go far away!〃



〃Has she always kept you back so?〃  I went on; to show her that I

could be as irrelevant as herself。



〃She told me to come out tonight; she has told me very often;〃

said Miss Tita。  〃It is I who wouldn't come。  I don't like

to leave her。〃



〃Is she too weak; is she failing?〃  I demanded; with more emotion;

I think; than I intended to show。  I judged this by the way

her eyes rested upon me in the darkness。  It embarrassed me

a little; and to turn the matter off I continued genially:

〃Do let us sit down together comfortably somewhere; and you

will tell me all about her。〃



Miss Tita made no resistance to this。  We found a bench

less secluded; less confidential; as it were; than the one

in the arbor; and we were still sitting there when I heard

midnight ring out from those clear bells of Venice which

vibrate with a solemnity of their own over the lagoon and hold

the air so much more than the chimes of other places。

We were together more than an hour; and our interview gave;

as it struck me; a great lift to my undertaking。

Miss Tita accepted the situation without a protest;

she had avoided me for three months; yet now she treated me

almost as if these three months had made me an old friend。

If I had chosen I might have inferred from this that though

she had avoided me she had given a good deal of consideration

to doing so。  She paid no attention to the flight of time

never worried at my keeping her so long away from her aunt。

She talked freely; answering questions and asking them and not

even taking advantage of certain longish pauses with which they

inevitably alternated to say she thought she had better go in。

It was almost as if she were waiting for somethingsomething I

might say to herand intended to give me my opportunity。

I was the more struck by this as she told me that her aunt

had been less well for a good many days and in a way that was

rather new。  She was weaker; at moments it seemed as if she

had no strength at all; yet more than ever before she wished

to be left alone。  That was why she had told her to come out

not even to remain in her own room; which was alongside;

she said her niece irritated her; made her nervous。

She sat still for hours together; as if she were asleep;

she had always done that; musing and dozing; but at such times

formerly she gave at intervals some small sign of life;

of interest; liking her companion to be near her with her work。

Miss Tita confided to me that at present her aunt was so

motionless that she sometimes feared she was dead; moreover she

took hardly any foodone couldn't see what she lived on。

The great thing was that she still on most days got up;

the serious job was to dress her; to wheel her out of her bedroom。

She clung to as many of her old habits as possible and she

had always; little company as they had received for years;

made a point of sitting in the parlor。



I scarcely knew what to think of all thisof Miss Tita's

sudden conversion to sociability and of the strange

circumstance that the more the old lady appeared to decline

toward her end the less she should desire to be looked after。

The story did not hang together; and I even asked myself whether

it were not a trap laid for me; the result of a design to make

me show my hand。  I could not have told why my companions

(as they could only by courtesy be called) should have this purpose

why they should try to trip up so lucrative a lodger。

At any rate I kept on my guard; so that Miss Tita should not

have occasion again to ask me if I had an arriere…pensee。

Poor woman; before we parted for the night my mind was at rest

as to HER capacity for entertaining one。



She told me more about their affairs than I had hoped;

there was no need to be prying; for it evidently drew

her out simply to feel that I listened; that I cared。

She ceased wondering why I cared; and at last; as she spoke of

the brilliant life they had led years before; she almost chattered。

It was Miss Tita who judged it brilliant; she said that when they

first came to live in Venice; years and years before (I saw

that her mind was essentially vague about dates and the order

in which events had occurred); there was scarcely a week

that they had not some visitor or did not make some delightful

passeggio in the city。  They had seen all the curiosities;

they had even been to the Lido in a boat (she spoke as if I might

think there was a way on foot); they had had a collation there;

brought in three baskets and spread out on the grass。

I asked her what people they had known and she said; Oh! very

nice onesthe Cavaliere Bombicci and the Contessa Altemura;

with whom they had had a great friendship。  Also English people

the Churtons and the Goldies and Mrs。 Stock…Stock; whom

they had loved dearly; she was dead and gone; poor dear。

That was the case with most of their pleasant circle

(this expression was Miss Tita's own); though a few were left;

which was a wonder considering how they had neglected them。

She mentioned the names of two or three Venetian old women; of a

certain doctor; very clever; who was so kindhe came as a friend;

he had really given up practice; of the avvocato Pochintesta;

who wrote beautiful poems and had addressed one to her aunt。

These people came to see them without fail every year;

usually at the capo d'anno; and of old her aunt used

to make them some little presenther aunt and she together:

small things that she; Miss Tita; made herself; like paper

lampshades or mats for the decanters of wine at dinner or those

woolen things that in cold weather were worn on the wrists。

The last few years there had not been many presents;

she could not think what to make; and her aunt had lost her

interest and never suggested。  But the people came all the same;

if the Venetians liked you once they liked you forever。



There was something affecting in the good faith of this

sketch of former social glories; the picnic at the Lido had

remained vivid through the ages; and poor Miss Tita evidently

was of the impression that she had had a brilliant youth。

She had in fact had a glimpse of the Venetian world in

its gossiping; home…keeping; parsimonious; professional walks;

for I observed for the first time that she had acquired

by contact something of the trick of the familiar;

soft…sounding; almost infantile speech of the place。

I judged that she had imbibed this invertebrate dialect

from the natural way the names of things and people

mostly purely localrose to her lips。  If she knew little

of what they represented she knew still less of anything else。

Her aunt had drawn inher failing interest in the table mats

and lampshades was a sign of thatand she had not been able

to mingle in society or to entertain it alone; so that the matter

of her reminiscences struck one as an old world altogether。

If she had not been so decent her references would have seemed

to carry one back to the queer rococo Venice of Casanova。

I found myself falling into the error of thinking of her too

as one of Jeffrey Aspern's contemporaries; this came from her

having so little in common with my own。  It was possible;

I said to myself; that she had not even heard of him;

it might very well be that Juliana had not cared to lift even

for her the veil that covered the temple of her youth。  In this

case she perhaps would not know of the exis

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