She must have been conscious, however, that though my face showed the greatest embarrassment that was ever painted on a human countenance it was not set as a stone, it was also full of compassion.
It was a comfort to me a long time afterward to consider that she could not have seen in me the smallest symptom of disrespect.
"I don't know what to do; I'm too tormented, I'm too ashamed!"she continued with vehemence.Then turning away from me and burying her face in her hands she burst into a flood of tears.If she did not know what to do it may be imagined whether I did any better.
I stood there dumb, watching her while her sobs resounded in the great empty hall.In a moment she was facing me again, with her streaming eyes.
"I would give you everything--and she would understand, where she is--she would forgive me!"
"Ah, Miss Tita--ah, Miss Tita," I stammered, for all reply.
I did not know what to do, as I say, but at a venture I made a wild, vague movement in consequence of which I found myself at the door.
I remember standing there and saying, "It wouldn't do--it wouldn't do!"pensively, awkwardly, grotesquely, while I looked away to the opposite end of the sala as if there were a beautiful view there.
The next thing I remember is that I was downstairs and out of the house.
My gondola was there and my gondolier, reclining on the cushions, sprang up as soon as he saw me.I jumped in and to his usual "Dove commanda?" I replied, in a tone that made him stare, "Anywhere, anywhere; out into the lagoon!"He rowed me away and I sat there prostrate, groaning softly to myself, with my hat pulled over my face.What in the name of the preposterous did she mean if she did not mean to offer me her hand? That was the price--that was the price! And did she think I wanted it, poor deluded, infatuated, extravagant lady?
My gondolier, behind me, must have seen my ears red as I wondered, sitting there under the fluttering tenda, with my hidden face, noticing nothing as we passed--wondered whether her delusion, her infatuation had been my own reckless work.
Did she think I had made love to her, even to get the papers?
I had not, I had not; I repeated that over to myself for an hour, for two hours, till I was wearied if not convinced.
I don't know where my gondolier took me; we floated aimlessly about in the lagoon, with slow, rare strokes.At last I became conscious that we were near the Lido, far up, on the right hand, as you turn your back to Venice, and I made him put me ashore.
I wanted to walk, to move, to shed some of my bewilderment.
I crossed the narrow strip and got to the sea beach--I took my way toward Malamocco.But presently I flung myself down again on the warm sand, in the breeze, on the coarse dry grass.
It took it out of me to think I had been so much at fault, that I had unwittingly but nonetheless deplorably trifled.
But I had not given her cause--distinctly I had not.
I had said to Mrs.Prest that I would make love to her;but it had been a joke without consequences and I had never said it to Tita Bordereau.I had been as kind as possible, because I really liked her; but since when had that become a crime where a woman of such an age and such an appearance was concerned?
I am far from remembering clearly the succession of events and feelings during this long day of confusion, which I spent entirely in wandering about, without going home, until late at night;it only comes back to me that there were moments when Ipacified my conscience and others when I lashed it into pain.
I did not laugh all day--that I do recollect; the case, however it might have struck others, seemed to me so little amusing.
It would have been better perhaps for me to feel the comic side of it.At any rate, whether I had given cause or not it went without saying that I could not pay the price.
I could not accept.I could not, for a bundle of tattered papers, marry a ridiculous, pathetic, provincial old woman.
it was a proof that she did not think the idea would come to me, her having determined to suggest it herself in that practical, argumentative, heroic way, in which the timidity however had been so much more striking than the boldness that her reasons appeared to come first and her feelings afterward.
As the day went on I grew to wish that I had never heard of Aspern's relics, and I cursed the extravagant curiosity that had put John Cumnor on the scent of them.
We had more than enough material without them, and my predicament was the just punishment of that most fatal of human follies, our not having known when to stop.
It was very well to say it was no predicament, that the way out was simple, that I had only to leave Venice by the first train in the morning, after writing a note to Miss Tita, to be placed in her hand as soon as I got clear of the house;for it was a strong sign that I was embarrassed that when Itried to make up the note in my mind in advance (I would put it on paper as soon as I got home, before going to bed), I could not think of anything but "How can I thank you for the rare confidence you have placed in me?" That would never do;it sounded exactly as if an acceptance were to follow.
Of course I might go away without writing a word, but that would be brutal and my idea was still to exclude brutal solutions.
As my confusion cooled I was lost in wonder at the importance Ihad attached to Miss Bordereau's crumpled scraps; the thought of them became odious to me, and I was as vexed with the old witch for the superstition that had prevented her from destroying them as I was with myself for having already spent more money than I could afford in attempting to control their fate.