 Chapter 6 of the Aspirin Papers. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. One afternoon, as I came down from my quarters to go out, I found Miss Tita in the sala. It was our first encounter on that ground since I had come to the house. She put on no air of being there by accident. There was an ignorance of such arts in her angular, diffident directness. That I might be quite sure she was waiting for me, she informed me of the fact and told me that Miss Bordero wished to see me. She would take me into the room at that moment if I had time. If I had been late for a love-trist, I would have stayed for this. And I quickly signified that I should be delighted to wait upon the old lady. She wants to talk with you, to know you, Miss Tita said, smiling as if she herself appreciated that idea. And she led me to the door of her aunt's apartment. I stopped her for a moment before she had opened it, looking at her with some curiosity. I told her that this was a great satisfaction to me and a great honour. But all the same I should like to ask what had made Miss Bordero change so suddenly. It was only the other day that she wouldn't suffer me near her. Miss Tita was not embarrassed by my question. She had as many little unexpected serenities as if she told fibs. But the odd part of them was that they had, on the contrary, their source in her truthfulness. Oh, my aunt changes, she answered. It's so terribly dull, I suppose she's tired. But you told me that she wanted more and more to be alone. Poor Miss Tita coloured, as if she found me over insistent. Well, if you don't believe she wants to see you, I haven't invented it. I think people often are capricious when they are very old. That's perfectly true. I only wanted to be clear as to whether you have repeated to her what I told you the other night. What you told me? About Jeffrey Aspen, that I'm looking for materials. If I had told her, do you think she would have sent for you? That's exactly what I want to know. If she wants to keep him to herself, she might have sent for me to tell me so. She won't speak of him, said Miss Tita. Then, as she opened the door, she added in a lower tone, I have told her nothing. The old woman was sitting in the same place in which I had seen her last, in the same position, with the same mystifying bandage over her eyes. Her welcome was to turn her almost invisible face to me and show me that while she sat silent, she saw me clearly. I made no motion to shake hands with her. It felt too well on this occasion that that was out of place forever. It had been sufficiently enjoined upon me that she was too sacred for that sort of reciprocity, too venerable to touch. There was something so grim in her aspect. It was partly the accident of her green shade. As I stood there to be measured, that I ceased on the spot to feel any doubt as to her knowing my secret. I was not in the least suspected Miss Tita had not just spoken the truth. She had not betrayed me, but the old woman's brooding instinct had served her. She had turned me over and over in the long still hours, and she had guessed. The worst of it was that she looked terribly like an old woman who had a pinch would burn her papers. Miss Tita pushed a chair forward saying to me, it's a good place for you to sit. As I took possession of it, I asked after Miss Bordero's health, expressed the hope that in spite of the very hot weather, it was satisfactory. She replied that it was good enough, good enough, that it was a great thing to be alive. Oh, as to that it depends about what you compare it with, I exclaimed, laughing. I don't compare, I don't compare. If I did that, I should have given everything up long ago. I like to think that this was a subtle illusion to the rapture she had known in the society of Jeffrey Aspern, though it was true that such an illusion would have accorded ill with the wish I imputed to her to keep him buried in her soul. What it accorded with was my constant conviction that no human being had ever had a more delightful social gift than his, and what it seemed to convey was that nothing in the world was worth speaking of if one pretended to speak of that, but one did not. Miss Tita sat down beside her head, looking as if she had reason to believe some very remarkable conversation would come off between us. It's about the beautiful flowers, said the old lady. You sent us so many, I ought to have thanked you for them before, but I don't write letters and I receive only at long intervals. She had not thanked me while the flowers continued to come, but she departed from her custom so far as to send for me as soon as she began to fear that they would not come any more. I noted this. I remembered what an acquisitive propensity she had shown when it was a question of extracting gold from me, and I privately rejoiced at the happy thought I had had in suspending my tribute. She had missed it, and she was willing to make a concession to bring it back. At the first sign of this concession I could only go to meet her. I am afraid you have not had many of late, but they shall begin again immediately, tomorrow, tonight. O, do send us some tonight, Miss Tita cried, as if it were an immense circumstance. What else should you do with them? It isn't a manly taste to make a bower of your room, the old woman remarked. I don't make a bower of my room, but I am exceedingly fond of growing flowers, of watching their ways. There is nothing unmanly in that. It has been the amusement of philosophers, of statesmen in retirement, even I think of great captains. I suppose you know you can sell them, those you don't use, Miss Bordero went on. I daresay they wouldn't give you much for them, still you could make a bargain. O, I have never made a bargain, as you ought to know. My gardener disposes of them, and I ask no questions. I would ask a few, I can promise you, said Miss Bordero, and it was the first time I had heard her laugh. I could not get used to the idea that this vision of pecuniary profit was what drew out the divine Juliana most. Come into the garden yourself and pick them, come as often as you like, come every day, they are all for you, I pursued, addressing Miss Tita and carrying off this voracious statement by treating it as an innocent joke. I can't imagine why she doesn't come down, I added for Miss Bordero's benefit. You must make her come, you must come up and fetch her, said the old woman to my stupefaction. That odd thing you have made in the corner would be a capital place for her to sit. The allusion to my arbor was irreverent. It confirmed the impression I had already received that there was a flicker of impertinence in Miss Bordero's talk, a strange mocking lambency which must have been a part of her adventurous youth and which had outlived passions and faculties. Nonetheless, I asked, wouldn't it be possible for you to come down there yourself? Wouldn't do you good to sit there in the shade, in the sweet air? Oh, sir, when I move out of this, it won't be to sit in the air and I'm very afraid that any that may be stirring around me won't be particularly sweet. It will be a very dark shade indeed. But that won't be just yet, Miss Bordero continued candidly, as if to correct any hopes that this courageous allusion to the last receptacle of her mortality might lead me to entertain. I have sat here many a day and I have had enough of arbor's in my time, but I'm not afraid to wait till I'm called. Miss Tita had expected some interesting talk, but perhaps she found it less genial on her hand side, considering that I had been sent for with a civil intention than she had hoped. As if to give the conversation a turn that would put our companion in a light more favorable, she said to me, didn't I tell you the other night that she had sent me out? You see that I can do what I like. Do you pity her? Do you teach her to pity herself? Miss Bordero demanded before I had time to answer this appeal. She has a much easier life than I had when I was her age. You must remember that it has been quite open to me to think you rather inhuman. Inhuman? That's what the poets used to call the women years ago. Don't try that. You won't do as well as they, Juliana declared. There is no more poetry in the world than I know of at least. But I won't bendy words with you, she pursued, and I well remember the old-fashioned artificial sound she gave to the speech. You have made me talk, talk. It isn't good for me at all. I got up at this and told her I would take no more of her time, but she detained me to ask. Do you remember the day I saw you about the rooms that you offered us the use of your gondola? And when I assented promptly, struck again with her disposition to make a good thing of being there and wondering what she now had in her eye, she broke out. Why don't you take that girl out in it and show her the place? Oh, dear Aunt, what do you want to do with me? cried the girl with a piteous quaver. I know all about the place. Well, then go with him as a Ciccerone, said Miss Bordero with an effort of something like cruelty in her implacable power of retort, an incongruous suggestion that she was a sarcastic, profane, cynical old woman. Haven't we heard that there have been all sorts of changes in all these years? You ought to see them. And at your age, I don't mean because you're so young, you don't have the chances that come. You're old enough, my dear, and this gentleman won't hurt you. He will show you the famous sunsets if they still go on. Do they go on? The sun set for me so long ago. But that's not a reason. Besides, I shall never miss you. You think you are too important. Take her to the piazza. It used to be very pretty, Miss Bordero continued, addressing herself to me. I hope it hasn't tumbled down. Let her look at the shops. She may take some money. She may buy what she likes. Poor Miss Tita had got up, discounted an instant helpless, and as we stood there before her aunt it would certainly have seemed to a spectator of the scene that the old woman was amusing herself at our expense. Miss Tita protested in a confusion of exclamations and murmurs, but I lost no time in saying that if she would do me the honor to accept the hospitality of my boat, I would engage that she should not be bored. Or, if she did not want so much of my company, the boat itself with the gondolier was at her service. He was a capital ore and she might have every confidence. Miss Tita, without definitely answering this speech, looked away from me, out of the window as if she were going to cry. And I remarked that once we had Miss Bordero's approval, we could easily come to an understanding. We would take an hour, whichever she liked, one of the very next days. As I made my obeisance to the old lady, I asked her if she would kindly permit me to see her again. For a moment she said nothing. Then she inquired, is it very necessary to your happiness? It diverts me more than I can say. You are wonderfully civil. Don't you know it almost kills me? How can I believe that when I see you more animated, more brilliant than when I came in? That is very true, Aunt, said Miss Tita. I think it does you good. Isn't it touching, the solicitude we each have that the other shall enjoy herself? Sneered Miss Bordero. If you think me brilliant today, you don't know what you're talking about. You have never seen an agreeable woman. Don't try to pay me a compliment. I have been spoiled. She went home. My door is shut, but you may sometimes knock. With this she dismissed me had I left the room. The latch closed behind me, but Miss Tita, contrary to my hope, had remained within. I passed slowly across the hall and before taking my way downstairs I waited a little. My hope was answered. After a minute Miss Tita followed me. I had a wonderful idea about the piazza, I said. When will you go? Tonight? Tomorrow? She had been disconcerted, as I have mentioned, but I had already perceived and I was to observe again that when Miss Tita was embarrassed she did not, as most women would have done, turn away from you and try to escape. But came closer, as it were, with a deprecating, clinging appeal to be spared, to be protected. Her attitude was perpetually a sort of prayer for assistance, for explanation, and yet no woman in the world could have been less of a comedian. From the moment you were kind to her she depended on you absolutely. Her self-consciousness dropped from her and she took the greatest idiocy, the innocent idiocy, which was the only thing she could conceive for granted. She told me she did not know what had got into her aunt. She had changed so quickly that she had got some idea. I replied that first she must find out what the idea was and then let me know. We would go and have an ice together at Florians and she should tell me why we listened to the band. Oh, it will take me a long time to find out, she said rather ruefully, and she could promise me this satisfaction neither for that night nor for the next. I was patient now, however, for I felt that I had only to wait, and in fact at the end of the week one lovely evening after dinner she stepped into my gondola to which, in honor of the occasion I had attached a second oar. We swept in the course of five minutes into the Grand Canal whereupon she uttered a murmur of ecstasy as fresh as if she had been a tourist just arrived. She had forgotten how splendid the Great Waterway looked and how the sense of floating between marble palaces and reflected lights disposed the mind to sympathetic talk. We floated long and far and though Miss Tita gave no high-pitched voice to her satisfaction I felt that she surrendered herself. She was more than pleased she was transported. The whole thing was immense liberation. The gondola moved with slow strokes to give her time to enjoy it and she listened to the plash of the oars which grew louder and more musically liquid as we passed into narrow canals as if it were a revelation of Venice. When I asked her how long it was since she had been in a boat she answered, oh I don't know a long time, not since my aunt began to be ill. This was not the only example she gave me of her extreme vagueness about the previous years and the line which marked off when Miss Bordero flourished. I was not at liberty to keep her out too long but we took a considerable giro before going to the piazza. I asked her no questions keeping the conversation on purpose away from her domestic situation and the things I wanted to know. I poured treasures of information about Venice into her ears described Florence and Rome discourse to her on the charms and advantages of travel. She reclined, receptive on the deep leather cushions turned her eyes conscientiously to everything I pointed out to her and never mentioned to me till sometime afterward that she might be supposed to know Florence better than I as she had lived there for years with Miss Bordero. At last she asked with the shy impatience of a child are we not really going to the piazza? That's what I want to see. I immediately gave the order that we should go straight and then we sat silent with the expectation of arrival. As sometime still past however she said suddenly of her own movement I have found out what is the matter with my aunt. She is afraid you will go. What has put that into her head? She has had an idea that you have not been happy. That is why she is different now. You mean she wants to make me happier? Well, she wants you not to go to stay. I suppose you mean on account of the rent, I remarked candidly. Miss Tita's candor showed itself a match for my own. Yes, you know, so that I shall have more. How much does she want you to have? I asked laughing. She ought to fix the sum so that I may stay till it's made up. Oh, that wouldn't please me, said Miss Tita. It would be unheard of you're taking that trouble. But suppose for my own reasons for staying in Venice then it would be better for you to stay in some other house. And what would your aunt say to that? She wouldn't like it at all, but I should think you would do well to give up your reasons and go away altogether. Dear Miss Tita, I said it's not so easy to give them up. She made no immediate answer to this, but after a moment she broke out I think I know what your reasons are. I dare say because the other night I almost told you how I wish you would help me to make them good. I can't do that without being false to my aunt. What do you mean being false to her? Why, she would never consent to what you want. She has been asked. She has been written to. It has made her fearfully angry. Then she has got papers of value? I demanded quickly. Oh, she has got everything, sighed Miss Tita with a curious weariness, a sudden lapse into gloom. These words caused all my pulses to throb, for I regarded them as precious evidence. For some minutes I was too agitated to speak, and in the interval the gondola approached the piazzetta. After we had disembarked I asked my companion whether she would rather walk round the square or go and sit at the door of the café, to which she replied that she would do her very best. I must only remember how little time she had. I assured her there was plenty to do both, and we made the circuit of the long arcades. Her spirits revived at the site of the bright shop windows, and she lingered and stopped admiring or disapproving of their contents, asking me what I thought of things, theorizing about prices. My attention wandered from her, her words of a while before. Oh, she has got everything! Echoed so in my consciousness. We sat down at last in the crowded circle at Florians, finding an unoccupied table among those that were ranged in the square. It was a splendid night, and all the world was out of doors. Miss Tita could not have wished the elements more auspicious for her return to society. I saw that she enjoyed it even more than she wanted. She was agitated with the multitude of her impressions. She had forgotten what an attractive thing the world is, and it was coming over her that somehow she had for the best years of her life been cheated of it. This did not make her angry, but as she looked all over the charming scene, her face had, in spite of its smile of appreciation, the flush of a sort of wounded surprise. She became silent as if she were thinking with a secret sadness of opportunities for ever lost, which ought to have been easy. And this gave me a chance to say to her, did you mean a while ago that your aunt has a plan of keeping me on by admitting me occasionally to her presence? She thinks it will make a difference with you if you sometimes see her. She wants you so much to stay that she is willing to make that concession. You do me to see her. I don't know. She thinks it's interesting," said Miss Tita simply. You told her you found it so. So I did, but everyone doesn't think so. No, of course not, or more people would try. Well, if she is capable of making that reflection, she is capable of making this further one, I went on, that I must have a particular reason for not doing, as others do, in making her alone. Miss Tita looked as if she failed to grasp this rather complicated proposition, so I continued. If you have not told her what I said to you the other night, may she not at least have guessed it? I don't know. She is very suspicious. But she has not been made so by indiscreet curiosity, by persecution. No, no, it isn't that, said Miss Tita, turning on me a somewhat troubled face. I don't know how it's on account of something ages ago before I was born, in her life. Something, what sort of thing, I asked, as if I myself could have no idea. Oh, she has never told me, Miss Tita answered, and I was sure she was speaking the truth. Her extreme limpidity was almost provoking and I felt for the moment that she would have been more satisfactory if she had been less ingenuous. Do you suppose it to which Jeffrey Aspen's letters and papers, I mean the things in her possession, have reference? I daresay it is, my companion exclaimed, as if this were a very happy suggestion. I have never looked at any of those things. None of them? Then how do you know what they are? I don't, said Miss Tita placidly. I have never had them in my hands, but I have seen them when she has had them out. Does she have them out often? Not now, but she used to. She is very fond of them. In spite of their being compromising? Compromising? Miss Tita repeated, as if she were ignorant of the meaning of the word. I felt almost as one who corrupts the innocence of youth. I mean they are containing painful memories. Oh, I don't think they are painful. You mean that you don't think they affect her reputation? But this singular look came into the face of Miss Bordero's niece, a kind of confession of helplessness, an appeal to me to deal fairly, generously with her. I had brought her to the piazza, placed her among charming influences, paid her an attention she appreciated, and now I seem to let her perceive that all this had been a bribe, a bribe to make her turn in some way against her aunt. She was of a yielding nature, and capable of doing almost anything to please a person who was kind to her. But the greatest kindness of all would be not to presume too much on this. It was strange enough as I afterwards thought that she had not the least air of resenting my water of consideration for her aunt's character, which would have been in the worst possible taste if anything less vital from my point of view had been at stake. I don't think she really measured it. Do you mean that she did something bad? She asked in a moment. Heaven forbid I should say so, and it's none of my business. Besides, if she did, I added laughing. It was in other ages in another world. But why should she not destroy her papers? Oh, she loves them too much. Even now, when she may be near her end, perhaps when she's sure of that she will. Well, Miss Tita, I said, it's just what I should like you to prevent. How can I prevent it? Couldn't you get them away from her and give them to you? This put the case very crudely, though I am sure there was no irony in her intention. Oh, I mean that you might let me see them and look them over. It isn't for myself. There's no personal avidity in my desire. It's simply that they would be of such immense interest to the public, such immeasurable importance as a contribution to Geoffrey Aspern's history. She listened to me in her usual manner, as if my speech were full of reference to things she had never heard of, and I felt particularly like the reporter of a newspaper who forces his way into a house of mourning. This was especially the case when, after a moment, she said, there was a gentleman who, some time ago, wrote to her in very much those words. He also wanted her papers. And did she answer him? I asked, rather ashamed of myself of having her rectitude. Only when he had written two or three times, he made her very angry. And what did she say? She said he was a devil, Miss Teeter replied simply. She used that expression in her letter? Oh, no, she said it to me. She made me write to him. And what did you say? I told her there were no papers at all. Ah, poor gentleman, I explained. I knew there were, but she wrote what she bade me. Of course you had to do that, but I hope I shall not pass for a devil. It will depend on what you ask me to do for you, said Miss Teeter, smiling. Oh, if there is a chance of your thinking so, my affair is in a bad way. I shan't ask you to steal for me, nor even to fib, for you can't fib unless on paper. But the principal thing is this, to prevent her from destroying it. Why, I have no control of her, said Miss Teeter. It is she who controls me. But she doesn't control her own arms and legs, does she? The way she would naturally destroy her letters would be to burn them. Now she can't burn them without fire, and she can't get fire unless you give it to her. I have always done everything she has asked, my companion rejoined, besides the Olympia. I was on the point of saying that Olympia was probably corruptible, but I thought it best not to sound that note, so I simply inquired if that faithful domestic could not be managed. Everyone can be managed by my aunt, said Miss Teeter, and then she observed that her holiday was over, she must go home. I laid my hand on her arm across the table to stay a moment. What I want of you is a general promise to help me. Oh, how can I, how can I? She asked, wondering and troubled. She was half surprised, half frightened at my wishing to make her play an active part. This is the main thing, to watch her carefully and warn me in time before she commits that horrible sacrilege. I can't watch her when she makes me go out. That's very true. And when you do too, mercy on us, do you think she has done anything tonight? I don't know, she is very cunning. Are you trying to frighten me? I asked. I felt this inquiry sufficiently answered when my companion murmured in amusing, almost envious way. Oh, but she loves them, she loves them. This reflection, repeated with such emphasis, gave me great comfort, but to obtain more of that bomb, I said. If she shouldn't intend to destroy her death, she will probably have made some disposition by will. By will? Hasn't she made a will for your benefit? Why, she has so little to leave. That's why she likes money, said Miss Tita. Might I ask, since we're really talking things over, what you and she live on? On some money that comes from America, from a lawyer, he sends it every quarter. It isn't much. And won't she have disposed of that? And hesitated. I saw she was blushing. I believe it's mine, she said. And the look and tone which accompanied these words betrayed so the absence of the habit of thinking of herself that I almost thought her charming. The next instant she added. But she had a lawyer once ever so long ago, and some people came and signed something. They were probably witnesses. And you were not asked to sign? Well then, I argued rapidly and hopefully. It is because you are the legatee. She has left all the documents to you. If she has, it's with very strict conditions, Miss Tita responded, rising quickly while the movement gave the words a little character of decision. They seemed to imply that the bequest would be accompanied with a command that the articles bequeathed should remain concealed from every inquisitive eye, which was very much mistaken if I thought she was the person to depart from an injunction so solemn. Oh, of course you'll have to abide by the terms, I said. And she uttered nothing to mitigate the severity of this conclusion. Nonetheless later, just before we disembarked at her own door on our return, which had taken place almost in silence, she said to me eruptly, I will do what I can to help you. I was grateful for this. It was very well so far as it went, but it did not keep me from remembering that night in a worried waking hour that I now had her word for it to reinforce my own impression that the old woman was very cunning. End of chapter 6 Chapter 7 of the Aspern Papers This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The fear of what this side of her character might have led her to do made me nervous for days afterward. I waited for an intimation from Miss Tita. I almost figured to myself that it was her duty to keep me informed to let me know definitely whether or no Miss Bordero had sacrificed her treasures. But as she gave no sign, I lost patience and determined to judge so far as was possible with my own senses. I sent late one afternoon to ask if I might pay the ladies a visit, and my servant came back with surprising news. Miss Bordero could be approached without the least difficulty. She had been moved out into the sala and was sitting by the window that overlooked the garden. I descended and found this picture correct. The old lady had been wheeled forth into the world and had a certain air which came mainly perhaps from some brighter element in her dress, of being prepared again to have converse with it. It had not yet, however, begun to flock about her. She was perfectly alone and though the door leading to her own quarters stood open, I had at first no glimpse of Miss Tita. The window at which she sat had the afternoon shade and, one of the shutters having been pushed back, she could see the pleasant garden where the summer sun had by this time dried up too many of the plants. The yellow light and the long shadows. Have you come to tell me that you will take the rooms for six months more? She asked as I approached her, startling me by something coarse in her cupidity almost as much as if she had not already given me a specimen of it. Juliana's desire to make our acquaintance lucrative had been, as I have sufficiently indicated, a false note in my image of the woman who had inspired me with immortal lines. But I may say here definitely that I recognized, after all, that it behooved me to make a large allowance for her. It was I who had kindled the unholy flame. It was I who had put into her head that she had the means of making money. She appeared never to have thought of that. She had been living wastefully for years in a house five times too big for her on a footing that I could explain to presumption that, excessive as it was, the space she enjoyed cost her next to nothing and that small as were her revenues they left her for Venice an appreciable margin. I had descended on her one day and taught her to calculate, and my almost extravagant comedy on the subject of the garden had presented me irresistibly in the light of a victim. Like all persons who achieved the miracle of changing their point of view of the world, she had been intensely converted. She had seized my hint with a desperate tremulous clutch. I invited myself to go and get one of the chairs that stood at a distance against the wall. She had given herself no concern as to whether I should sit or stand. And while I placed it near her, I began gaily, oh, dear madam, what an imagination you have! What an intellectual sweep! Poor devil of a man of letters who lives from day to day, how can I take palaces by the year? My existence is precarious. I don't know where the six months hence, I shall have bread to put in my mouth. I have treated myself for once, it has been an immense luxury, but when it comes to going on, are your rooms too dear? If they are, you can have more for the same money, Juliana responded. We can arrange, as they say here, well, yes, since you ask me they are too dear, I said, evidently you suppose me richer than I am. She looked at me in her barricaded way. If you write books don't you sell them? Do you mean don't people buy them? A little, not so much as I could wish. Writing books, unless one be a great genius, and even then, is the last road to fortune. I think there is no more money to be made by literature. Perhaps you don't choose good subjects. What do you write about? Miss Bordeaux inquired. About the books of other people, I'm a critic and a historian in a small way. I wondered what she was coming to. And what other people now? Oh, better ones than myself, the great writers mainly, the great philosophers and poets of the past, those who are dead and gone and can't speak for them. I say they sometimes attached themselves to very clever women. I answered laughing. I spoke with great deliberation. But as my words fell upon the air they struck me as imprudent. However, I risked them and I was not sorry, for perhaps after all the old woman would be willing to treat. It seemed to be tolerably obvious that she knew my secret. Why, therefore, dragged the matter out? But in confession she only asked, do you think it's right to rake up the past? I don't know that I know what you mean by raking it up. But how can we get at it unless we dig a little? The present has such a rough way of treading it down. Oh, I like the past, but I don't like critics, the old woman declared with her fine tranquility. Neither do I, but I like their discoveries. Aren't they mostly lies? The lies I sometimes discover, I said, smiling at the quiet impertinence of this. They often lay bare the truth. The truth is gods, it isn't man's, we had better leave it alone. Who can judge of it? Who can say? We are terribly in the dark, I know, I admitted. But if we give up trying, what becomes of all the fine things? What becomes of the work I just mentioned, that of the great philosophers and poets? It is a great way to get by. You talk as if you were a tailor, said Miss Bordero whimsically. And she added quickly in a different manner. This house is very fine, the proportions are magnificent. Today I wanted to look at this place again. I made them bring me out here. When your man came just now to learn if I would see you, I was on the point of sending for you to ask if you didn't mean to go on. I pursued, like an auctioneer moving a little, as I guessed, her invisible eyes. I don't believe you often have lived in such a house, eh? I can't often afford to, I said. Well then, how much will you give for six months? I was on the point of exclaiming, and the air of excruciation in my face would have denoted a moral face. Don't, Juliana, for his sake don't. But I controlled myself and asked less passionately, why should I remain so long as that? I thought you liked it, said Miss Bordero with her shriveled dignity. So I thought I should. For a moment she said nothing more, and I left my own words to suggest to her what they might. I half expected her to say coldly enough that if I had been disappointed we need not continue the discussion. And this in spite of the fact that I believed her now to have in her mind, however it had come there, what would have told her that my disappointment was natural. But to my extreme surprise she ended by observing. If you don't think we have treated you well enough, perhaps we can discover some way of treating you better. This speech was somehow incongruous that it made me laugh again, and I excused myself by saying that she talked as if I were a sulky boy pouting in the corner to be brought round. I had not a grain of complaint to make, and could anything have exceeded Miss Tita's graciousness in accompanying me a few nights before to the piazza? But this the old woman went on. Well, you brought it on yourself. And then, in different tone, she is a very nice girl. I assented cordially to this proposition, and she expressed the hope that I did so not merely to be obliging, but that I really liked her. Meanwhile I wondered still more what Miss Bordero was coming to. Except for me today, she said, she has not a relation in the world. Did she, by describing her niece as amiable and unencumbered, wish to present her as a partie? It was perfectly true that I could not afford to go on with my rooms at a fancy price, and that I had already devoted to my undertaking almost all the hard cash I had set apart for it. My patience and my time were by no means exhausted, but I should be able to draw upon them only on a more usual Venetian basis. I was willing to pay the venerable woman with whom my pecuniary dealings with such a discord twice as much as any other patrona di casa would have asked, but I was not willing to pay her twenty times as much. I told her so plainly, and my plainness appeared to have some success, for she exclaimed, Very good, you have done what I asked, you have done it. Yes, but not for half a year, only by the month. Oh, I must think of that then. She seemed disappointed that I would not tie myself to a period, and I guessed that she wished both to secure me and to discourage me. To say severely, do you dream that you can get off with less than six months? Do you dream that even by the end of that time you will be appreciably nearer your victory? What was more in my mind was that she claimed as a trick of making me engage myself when in fact she had annihilated the papers. There was a moment when my suspense on this point was so acute that I all but broke out with a question, and what kept it back was but a kind of instinctive recoil, lest it should be a mistake, from the last violence of self-exposure. She was such a subtle old witch that one could never tell where one stood with her. You may have wondered up the puzzle when, just after she said she would think of my proposal, and without any formal transition, she drew from out of her pocket with an embarrassed hand a small object wrapped in crumpled white paper. She held it there a moment, and then she asked, do you know much about curiosities? About curiosities? About antiquities, the old game-cracks that people pay so much for today. Do you know what they bring? I thought I saw what was coming, but I said ingenuously. Do you want to buy something? No, I want a cell. What would an amateur give me for that? She unfolded the white paper and made a motion for me to take from her a small oval portrait. I possessed myself of it with a hand of which I could only hope that she did not perceive the tremor, and she added, I would part with it only for a good price. At first glance I recognized Jeffrey Aspern, and I was well aware that I flushed with the act. As she was watching me, however, I had the consistency to explain, what a striking face do tell me who it is. It's an old friend of mine, a very distinguished man in his day. He gave it to me himself, but I'm afraid to mention his name, lest you never should have heard of him, critic and historian as you are. The world goes fast, and one generation forgets another. He was all the fashion when I was young. She was perhaps amazed at my assurance, but I was surprised at hers, at her having the energy in her state of health and at her time of life to wish to sport with me that way simply for her private entertainment, the humor to test and practice on me. This at least was the interpretation that I put into the introduction of the portrait, for I could not believe that she really desired to sell it or cared for any information I might give her. What she wished was to dangle it before my eyes and put a prohibitive price on it. The face comes back to me, it torments me, I said, turning the object this way and that, and looking at it very critically. It was a careful, but not a supreme work of art. Larges was a young man with a remarkably handsome face in a high collared green coat and a buffed waistcoat. I judged the picture to have a valuable quality of resemblance and to have been painted when the model was about 25 years old. There are, as all the world knows, three other portraits of the poet in existence, but none of them is of so early a date as this elegant production. I have never seen the faces I went on. You expressed doubt of this generation having heard of the gentleman, but he strikes me for all the world as a celebrity. Now, who is he? I can't put my finger on him. I can't give him a label. Wasn't he a writer? Surely he's a poet. I was determined that it should be she, not I, who should first pronounce Geoffrey Aspern's name. My resolution was taken in ignorance of Miss Bordero's resolute character, and her lips never formed in my hearing the syllables had meant so much for her. She neglected to answer my questions but raised her hand to take back the picture with a gesture which, though ineffectual, was in a high degree peremptory. It's only a person who should know for himself that would give me my price, she said with a certain dryness. Oh, then you have a price. I did not restore the precious thing, not from any vindictive purpose, but because I instinctively clung to it. We looked at each other hard while I retained it. I know the least I would take. What had occurred to me to ask you about is the most I shall be able to get. She made a movement, drawing herself together as if in a spasm of dread and having lost her treasure she were going to attempt the immense effort of rising to snatch it from me. I instantly placed it in her hand again, saying as I did so. I should like to have it myself, but with your ideas I could never afford it. She turned the small oval plate over in her lap with its face down and I thought I saw her catch her breath a little as if she had a strain or an escape. This, however, did not prevent her saying in a moment. You would buy a likeness of a person you don't know by an artist who has no reputation. The artist may have no reputation, but that thing is wonderfully well-painted, I replied to give myself a reason. It's lucky you thought of saying that because the painter was my father. That makes the picture indeed precious, I exclaimed, laughing and I may add that a part of my laughter came from my satisfaction in finding that I had been right in my theory of Miss Bordero's origin. Ashwin had, of course, met the young lady when he went to her father's studio as a sitter. I observed to Miss Bordero that if she would entrust me with her property for twenty-four hours I should be happy to take advice upon it. But she made no answer to this save to slip it in silence into her pocket. This convinced me still more that she had no sincere intention of selling it during her lifetime, though she may have desired to satisfy herself as to the sum her niece should she leave it to her eventually to obtain for it. Well, at any rate, I hope you will not offer it without giving me notice, I said, as she remained irresponsible. Remember that I am a possible purchaser. I should want your money first, she returned with unexpected rudeness and then as if she thought herself that I had just caused a complaint of such an insinuation and wished to turn the matter off asked abruptly what I talked about with her niece and helped with her that way in the evening. You speak as if we had set up the habit, I replied. Certainly I should be very glad if it were to become a habit, but in that case I should feel a still greater scruple of betraying a lady's confidence. Her confidence? Has she got confidence? Here she is, she can tell you herself, I said, for Miss Tita now appeared on the threshold of the old woman's parlor. Have you got confidence, Miss Tita? Your aunt wants very much to know. Not in her, not in her, the young lady declared shaking her head with a dofulness that was neither jocular nor affected. I don't know what to do with her, she has fits of horrid imprudence, she is so easily tired and yet she has begun to roam to drag herself about the house. And she stood looking down at her immemorial companion with a sort of helpless wonder and familiarity had not made her perversities on occasion any more easy to follow. I know what I'm about, I'm not losing my mind, I daresay you would like to think so, said Miss Bordero with a cynical little sigh. I don't suppose you came out here yourself, Miss Tita must have had to lend you a hand, I interposed with a pacifying intention. Oh, she insisted that we should push her and when she insists, we should leave Miss Tita in the same tone of apprehension as if there were no knowing what service that she disapproved of her aunt might force her next to render. I have always got most things done I wanted, thank God. The people I have lived with have humoured me, the old woman continued speaking out of the grey ashes of her vanity. I suppose you mean that they have obeyed you. Well, whatever it is because I like you that I want to resist, said Miss Tita with a nervous laugh. Oh, I suspect you'll bring Miss Bordero upstairs next to pay me a visit, I went on. To which the old lady replied, oh no, I can keep an eye on you from here. You are very tired you will certainly be ill tonight, cried Miss Tita. Nonsense, my dear, I feel better at this moment than I have done for a month. I want to be where I can see this clever gentleman. Shouldn't you perhaps see me better in your sitting-room?" I inquired. Don't you mean shouldn't you have a better chance at me? She returned, fixing me a moment with her green shade. Ah, I haven't that anywhere. I look at you but I don't see you. You exciter dreadfully and that is not good, said Miss Tita giving me a reproachful, appealing look. I want to watch you, I want to watch you, the old lady went on. Well then, let us spend as much of our time together as possible, I don't care where, and that will give you every facility. Oh, I've seen enough of you for today, I'm satisfied, now I'll go home. Miss Tita laid her hands on the back of her aunt's chair and began to push, but I begged her to let me take her place. Oh yes, you may move me this way, you shant in any other, Miss Bordero explained as she felt herself propelled firmly and easily over the smooth, hard floor. Before we reached the door of her own apartment she commanded me to stop and she took a long, last look up and down the noble Sala. Oh, it's a magnificent house, she murmured, after which I pushed her forward. When we had entered the parlor Miss Tita told me that she should now be able to manage and at the same moment the little red-haired Donna came to meet her mistress. Miss Tita's idea was evidently to get her aunt immediately back to bed. I confess that in spite of this urgency I was guilty of the indiscretion of lingering. It held me there to think that I was nearer the documents I coveted, that they were probably put away somewhere in the faded, unsociable room. The place had indeed a bareness which did not suggest hidden treasures. There were no dusky nooks nor curtain corners, no massive cabinets nor chests with iron bands. Moreover it was possible it was perhaps even probable that the old lady had consigned her relics to her bedroom to some battered box that was shoved under the bed to the drawer of some lame dressing table where they would be in the range of vision by the dim night lamp. Nonetheless I scrutinized every article of furniture, every conceivable cover for a hoard, and noticed that there were half a dozen things with drawers, and in particular a tall old secretary with brass ornaments of the style of the Ampire, a receptacle somewhat rickety but still capable of keeping a great many secrets. I don't know why this article fascinated me so in as much as I certainly had no definite purpose of breaking into it, but I stared at it so hard that Miss Tita noticed me and changed color. Her doing this made me think I was right and that wherever they might have been before the Aspen papers at that moment languished behind the peevish little lock of the secretary. It was hard to remove my eyes from the dull mahogany front when I reflected that a simple panel divided me from the goal of my hopes, but I remembered my prudence and with an effort I took leave of Miss Bordero. To make the effort graceful I said to her that I should certainly bring her an opinion about the little picture. The little picture? Miss Tita asked, surprised. What do you know about it, my dear? The old woman demanded. You needn't mind. I have fixed my price. And what may that be? A thousand pounds. O Lord! cried poor Miss Tita irrepressibly. Is that what she talks to you about? said Miss Bordero. Imagine your aunts wanting to know. I had to separate for Miss Tita with only those words though I should have liked immensely to add. For heaven's sake meet me tonight in the garden. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of the Aspen papers This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. As it turned out the precaution had not been needed. For three hours later just as I had finished my dinner Miss Bordero's niece appeared unannounced in the open doorway of the room in which my simple repasts were served. I remember well that I felt no surprise at seeing her which is not a proof that I did not believe in her timidity. It was immense, but in a case in which there was a particular reason for boldness it would never have prevented her from running up to my rooms. I saw that she was now quite full of a particular reason. It threw her forward, made her seize me as I rose to meet her by the arm. My aunt is very ill. I think she is dying. Never in the world, I answered bitterly. Don't you be afraid. Do go for a doctor. Olympia is gone for the one we always have. But she doesn't come back. I told her that if he was not at home she was to follow him where he had gone but apparently she is following him all over Venice. I don't know what to do. She looks so as if she was sinking. May I see her? May I judge? I asked. Of course I shall be delighted to bring someone, but hadn't we better send my man instead so that I may stay with you? Miss Tita assented to this and I dispatched my servant for the doctor in the neighborhood. I hurried downstairs with her and on the way she told me that an hour after I had quitted them in the afternoon Miss Waterow had had an attack of oppression, a terrible difficulty in breathing. This had subsided but had left her so exhausted that she did not come up she seemed all gone. I repeated that she was not gone that she would not go yet whereupon Miss Tita gave me a side-long glance than she had ever directed at me and said, Really, what do you mean? I suppose you don't accuse her of making believe. I forget what reply I made to this, but I grant that in my heart I thought the old woman capable of any weird maneuver. Miss Tita wanted to know what I had done to her. Her aunt had told her that I had made her so angry. I declared I had done nothing. I had been exceedingly careful that my companion rejoined that Miss Bordero had assured her she had had a scene with me, a scene that had upset her. I answered with some resentment that it was a scene of her own making that I couldn't think what she was angry with me for, unless for not seeing my way to give a thousand pounds for the portrait of Jeffrey Aspern. And did she show you that O gracious, O dearly me groaned Miss Tita who appeared to feel that the situation was passing out of her control and that the elements of her fate were thickening around her. I said I would give anything to possess it yet that I had not a thousand pounds, but I stopped when we came to the door of Miss Bordero's room. I had an immense curiosity to pass it, but I thought it my duty to represent to Miss Tita that if I made the invalid angry she ought perhaps to be spared the sight of me. The sight of you? Do you think to see my companion demanded almost with indignation? I did think so, but for war to say it, and I softly followed my conductress. I remember that what I said to her as I stood for a moment besides the old woman's bed was does she never show you her eyes then? Have you never seen them? Miss Bordero had been divested of her green shade but it was not by fortune to behold Juliana in her nightcap. The upper half of her face was covered by the fall of a piece of dingy lace-like muslin, a sort of extemporized hood which wound round her head descended to the end of her nose, leaving nothing visible but her white withered cheeks and puggered mouth closed tightly and, as it were, consciously. Miss Tita gave me a glance of surprise, evidently not seeing a reason for my impatience. You mean that she always wears something, she does it to preserve them, because they are so fine? Oh, today, today and Miss Tita shook her head speaking very low, but they used to be magnificent. Yes, indeed, we have aspirant's word for that and as I looked again at the old woman's wrappings I could imagine that she had not wished people to allow a reason to say that the great poet had done it. But I did not waste my time in considering Miss Bordero, in whom the appearance of respiration was so slight as to suggest that no human attention could ever help her more. I turned my eyes all over the room, rummaging with them the closets, the chests of drawers, the tables. Miss Tita met them quickly and read, I think, what was in them, but she did not answer it, turning away restlessly anxiously, so that I felt rebuked with reason for a preoccupation that was almost profane in the presence of our dying companion. All the same I took another look, endeavoring to pick out mentally the place to try first, for a person who should wish to put his hand on Miss Bordero's papers directly after her death. The room was a dire confusion. It looked like the room of an old actress. There were hanging over chairs, odd-looking shabby bundles here and there, and various paste-board boxes piled together, battered, bulging and discolored, which might have been fifty years old. Miss Tita, after a moment, noticed the direction of my eyes again. And as if she guessed how I judged the air of the place forgetting I had no business to judge it at all, said perhaps to defend herself from the imputation of complicity and such untidiness. She likes it this way. We can't move things. There were old band boxes she has had most of her life. And she added half-taking pity on my real thought. Those things were there. And she pointed to a small, low trunk which stood under a sofa where there was just room for it. It appeared to be a queer, superannuated coffer of painted wood with elaborate handles and rivalled straps. And with the color it had last been endued with a coat of light green, much rubbed off. It evidently had traveled with Juliana in the olden time, in the days of her adventures which it had shared. It would have made a strange figure arriving at a modern hotel. Were there, they aren't now, I asked, startled by Miss Tita's implication. She was going to answer, but at that moment the doctor came in. The doctor whom the little maid had been sent to fetch and whom she had at last overtaken. My servant, going on his own errand, had met her with her companion in tow. And in the sociable Venetian spirit, retracing his steps with him, had also come up to the threshold of Miss Bordero's room where I saw him peeping over the doctor's shoulder. I motioned him away the more instantly that the sight of his face reminded me that I myself had almost as little to do there. An admonition confirmed by the sharp way the little doctor looked at me, appearing to take me for a rival who had the field before him. He was a short, fat, brisk gentleman who wore the tall hat of his profession and seemed to look at everything but his patient. He looked particularly at me as if it struck him that I should be better for a dose so that I bowed and left him with the women going down to smoke a cigar in the garden. I was nervous. I could not go further. I could not leave the place. I don't know exactly what I thought might happen, but it seemed to me important to be there. I wandered about in the alleys. The warm night had come on, smoking cigar after cigar and looking at the light in Miss Bordero's windows. They were open now, I could see. The situation was different. Sometimes the light moved, but not quickly. It did not suggest the hurry of a crisis. Was the old woman dying or was she already dead? Had the doctor said that there was nothing to be done at her tremendous age but to let her quietly pass away? Or had he simply announced with the look a little more conventional that the end of the end had come? Were the other two women moving about to perform the offices it made me uneasy not to be nearer, as if I thought the doctor himself might carry away the papers with him. I bit my cigar hard as it came over me again that perhaps there were now no papers to carry. I wandered about for an hour, for an hour and a half. I looked out from Miss Tita at one of the windows, having a vague idea that she might come there to give me some sign. Would she not see the red tip of my cigar out in the dark and feel that I wanted eminently to know what the doctor had said? I am afraid it is the proof my anxieties had made me gross that I should have taken in some degree for granted that at such an hour in the midst of the greatest change that could take place in her life they were uppermost also in Miss Tita's mind. My servant came down and spoke to me. He knew nothing say that the doctor had said. If he had stayed half an hour then Miss Bordero was still alive. It could not have taken so much time as that to enunciate the contrary. I sent the man out of the house. There were moments when the sense of his curiosity annoyed me and this was one of them. He had been watching my cigar tip from an upper window if Miss Tita had not. He could not know what I was after and I could not tell him. Though I was afraid theories about me which he thought fine and which I had I known them should have thought offensive. I went upstairs at last but I ascended no higher than the Sala. The door of Miss Bordero's apartment was open, showing from the parlor the dimness of a poor candle. I went toward it with a light tread and at the same moment Miss Tita appeared and stood looking at me as I approached. At her, she said, even before I had asked, the doctor has given her something. She woke up, came back to life while he was there. He says there is no immediate danger. No immediate danger? Surely he thinks her condition is strange. Yes, because she had been excited. That affects her dreadfully. It will do so again then because she excites herself. She did so this afternoon. Yes, she said more, said Miss Tita, with one of her lapses into a deeper placidity. What is the use of making such a remark as that if you begin to rattle her about again the first time she bids you? I won't. I won't do it any more. You must learn to resist her, I went on. Oh yes, I shall. I shall do so better if you tell me it's right. You mustn't do it for me. You must do it for yourself. It all comes to you. You are frightened. Well, I am not frightened now, said Miss Tita cheerfully. She is very quiet. Is she conscious again? Does she speak? No, she doesn't speak, but she takes my hand. She holds it fast. Yes, I rejoined. I can see what force she still has by the way she grabbed that picture this afternoon. But if she holds you fast, how comes it that you are here? Miss Tita so her face was in deep shadow. She had her back to the light in the parlor and I had put down my own candle far off near the door of the sala. I thought I saw her smile ingenuously. I came on purpose. I heard your step. Why? I came on tiptoe as inaudibly as possible. Well, I heard you, said Miss Tita. And is your aunt alone now? Oh no, Olympia is sitting there. On my side I hesitated. Shall we then step in there? And I nodded at the parlor. I wanted more and more to be on the spot. We can't talk there. She will hear us. I was on the point of replying that in that case we would sit silent. But I was too conscious that this would not do as there was something I desired immensely to ask her. So I proposed that we should walk a little in the sala keeping more at the other end to not disturb the old lady. Miss Tita assented unconditionally. The doctor was coming again, she said, and she would be there to meet him at the door. We strolled through the fine superfluous hall where on the marble floor, particularly as at first we said nothing. Our footsteps were more audible than I had expected. When we reached the other end, the wide window inveterately closed connecting with the balcony that was on the canal. I suggested that we should remain there as she would see the doctor arrive still better. I opened the window and we passed out on the balcony. The air of the canal seemed even heavier, hotter than that of the sala. The place was hushed and void. The quiet neighborhood had gone to sleep. A lamp here and there over the narrow black water glimmered in double, the voice of a man going homeward with his jacket on his shoulder and his hat on his ear came to us from a distance. This did not prevent the scene from being very comile faux as Miss Bordero had called it the first time I saw her. Presently a gondola passed along the canal with its slow, rhythmical plash and as we listened we watched it in silence. It did not stop. It did not carry the doctor and after it had gone on I said to Miss Tita, and where are they now? The things that were in the trunk. In the trunk? That green box you pointed out to me in her room. You said her papers had been there. You seemed to imply that she had transferred them. Oh yes, they are not in the trunk said Miss Tita. May I ask if you have looked? Yes, I have looked for you. How for me, dear Miss Tita, do you mean you would have given them to me if you were just almost trembling? She delayed to reply and I waited. Suddenly she broke out. I don't know what I would do, what I wouldn't. Would you look again, somewhere else? She had spoken with a strange, unexpected emotion and she went on in the same tone. I can't, I can't while she lies there. It isn't decent. No it isn't decent I replied gravely. Let the poor lady rest in peace. And the words on my lips were not hypocritical for I felt reprimanded and shamed. Miss Tita added in a moment as if she had guessed this and were sorry for me. But at the same time wished to explain that I did drive her on or at least didn't insist too much. I can't deceive her that way. I can't deceive her, perhaps on her deathbed. Heaven forbid I should ask you, though guilty myself. You have been guilty? I have sailed under false colors. I felt now as if I must tell her that I had given her an invented name on account of my fear that her aunt would have heard of me and would refuse to take me in. I explained this and also that I had really been a party to the letter written to them by John Cummder months before. She listened with great attention at me with parted lips and when I had made my confession she said, then your real name what is it? She repeated it over twice when I had told her accompanying it with the exclamation gracious, gracious. Then she added I like your own best so do I, I said laughing oof, it's a relief to get rid of the other. So it was a regular plot, a kind of conspiracy. Oh, a conspiracy we were only two, I replied leaving out Mrs. Pressed of course. She hesitated I thought she was perhaps going to say that we had been very base but she remarked after a moment in a candid, wondering way how much you must want them. Oh, I do passionately, I conceded smiling and this chance made me go on forgetting my compunction of a moment before. How can she possibly have changed their place herself? How can she walk? How can she arrive at that sort of muscular exertion? How could she lift and carry things? Oh, when one wants and when one has so much will, said Miss Tita as if she had thought over my question already herself and had simply no choice but that answer the idea that in the dead of night or at some moment when the coast was clear the old woman had been capable of a miraculous effort. Have you questioned Olympia? Hasn't she helped her? Hasn't she done it for her? I asked to which Miss Tita replied promptly and positively that their servant had had nothing to do with the matter so without admitting definitely that she had spoken to her. It was as if she were a little shy a little ashamed now of letting me see how much she had entered into my uneasiness suddenly she said to me without any immediate relevance I feel as if you were a new person now that you have got a new name it isn't a new one it's a very good old one sang Heaven she looked at me a moment I do like it better oh, if you didn't I would almost go on with the other would you really? I laughed again but for all answer to this inquiry I said of course if she can rummage about that way I would perfectly have burnt them you must wait, you must wait Miss Tita moralized mournfully and her tone ministered little to my patience for it seemed after all to accept that wretched possibility I would teach myself to wait I declared nevertheless because in the first place I could not do otherwise and in the second I had her promise given me the other night that she would help me I said, not as if she wished to recede but only to be conscientious naturally but if you could only find out I groaned quivering again I thought you said you would wait oh, you mean wait even for that? for what then? oh, nothing I replied rather foolishly being ashamed to tell her what had been implied in my submission to delay the idea that she would do more than merely find out I know not whether she guessed this at all events she appeared to become aware of the necessity for being a little more rigid I didn't promise to deceive, did I? I don't think I did it doesn't much matter whether you did or not, for you couldn't I don't think Miss Tita would have contested this event had she not been diverted by our seeing the doctors gondola shoot into the little canal and approach the house and he came as fast as if he believed that Miss Bordero was still in danger we looked down at him while he disembarked and then went back into the salah to meet him when he came up, however I naturally left Miss Tita to go off with him alone only asking her leave to come back later for news I went out of the house and took a long walk as far as the piazza where my restlessness declined to quit me I had to sit down it was very late now but there were people still at the little tables in front of the cafes I could only walk round and round and I did so half a dozen times I was uncomfortable but it gave me a certain pleasure to have told Miss Tita who I really was at last I took my way home again slowly getting all but inextricably lost as I did whenever I went out in Venice so that it was considerably less midnight when I reached my door the salah upstairs was as dark as usual and my lamp as I crossed it found nothing satisfactory to show me I was disappointed for I had notified Miss Tita that I would come back for a report and I thought she might have left a light there as a sign the door of the lady's apartment was closed which seemed an intimation that my faltering friend had gone to bed tired of waiting for me I stood in the middle of the place considering hoping she would hear me and perhaps peep out saying to myself too that she would never go to bed with her aunt in a state so critical she would sit up and watch she would be in a chair in her dressing gown I went nearer the door I stopped there and listened I heard nothing at all and at last I tapped gently no answer came and after another minute I turned the handle there was no light in the room this ought to have prevented me from going in but it had no such effect if I have candidly narrated the importunities the indelicacies of which my desire to possess myself of Geoffrey Asperin's papers had rendered me capable I need not shrink from confessing this last indiscretion I think it was the worst thing I did yet there were extenuating circumstances I was deeply so doubtless not disinterested and anxious for more news of the old lady and Miss Tita had accepted from me as it were a rendezvous which it might have been a point of honour with me to keep it may be said that her leaving the place dark was a positive sign that she released me and to this I can only reply that I desired not to be released the door of Miss Bordero's room was open and I could see beyond it the faintness of a taper there was no sound my footstep caused no one to stir I came further into the room I lingered there with my lamp and my hand I wanted to give Miss Tita a chance to come to me if she were with her aunt as she must be I made no noise to call her I only waited to see if she would not notice my light she did not and I explained this I found afterward I was right by the idea that she had fallen asleep if she had fallen asleep her aunt was not on her mind and my explanation ought to have let me to go out as I had come I must repeat again that it did not for I found myself at the same moment thinking of something else I had no definite purpose no bad intention but I felt myself held to the spot by an acute though absurd sense of opportunity for what I could not have said in as much as it was not in my mind that I might commit a theft even if it had been I was confronted with the evident fact that Miss Bordero did not leave her secretary, her cupboard and the drawers of her table escaping I had no keys, no tools and no ambition to smash her furniture nevertheless it came to me that I was now perhaps alone unmolested at the hour of temptation and secrecy nearer to the tormenting treasure than I had ever been I held up my lamp, let the light play on the different objects as if it could tell me something still there came no movement from the other room if Miss Tita was sleeping she was sleeping sound was she doing so generous creature on purpose to leave me the field did she know I was there and was she just keeping quiet to see what I would do, what I could do but what could I do when it came to that you even better than I how little I stopped in front of the secretary looking at it very idiotically for what had it to say to me after all in the first place it was locked and in the second it almost surely contained nothing in which I was interested ten to one the papers had been destroyed and even if they had not been destroyed the old woman would not have put them in such a place as that after removing them from the green trunk would not have transferred them if she had the idea of their safety on her brain from the better hiding place to the worse the secretary was more conspicuous more accessible in a room in which she could no longer mount guard it opened with a key but there was a little brass handle like a button as well I saw this as I played my lamp over it I did something more than this at the moment I caught a glimpse of the possibility really to understand if she did not wish me to understand if she wished me to keep away why had she not locked the door of communication between the sitting room and the sala that would have been a definite sign that I was to leave them alone if I did not leave them alone she meant me to come for a purpose a purpose now indicated by the quick fantastic idea that to oblige me she had unlocked the secretary left the key but the lid would probably move if I touched the button this theory fascinated me and I bent over very close to judge I did not propose to do anything not even not in the least to let down the lid I only wanted to test my theory to see if the cover would move I touched the button with my hand a mere touch would tell me and as I did so it is embarrassing for me to relate it I looked over my shoulder it was a chance an instinct for I had not heard anything I almost let my luminary drop and certainly I stepped back straightening myself up at what I saw Miss Bordero stood there in her nightdress in the doorway of her room watching me her hands were raised she had lifted the everlasting curtain that covered half her face and for the first the last the only time I beheld her extraordinary eyes they glared at me they made me horribly ashamed I shall never forget her strange little bent white tottering figure with its lifted head her attitude, her expression neither shall I forget the tone in which as I turned looking at her she hissed out passionately, furiously ah you publishing scoundrel I know not what I stammered to excuse myself to explain but I went toward her to tell her I meant no harm she waved me off with her old hands retreating before me in horror and the next thing I knew she had fallen back with a quick spasm as if death had descended on her into Miss Teeter's arms End of Chapter 8