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I dont do that at night, at this season. The lamplight brings in the animals. You might have known that when you came. I did know it! And in winter do you work at night? I read a good deal, but I dont often write. She listened as if these details had a rare interest, and suddenly a temptation quite at variance with the prudence I had been teaching myself associated itself with her plain, mild face. Ah yes, she was safe and I could make her safer! It seemed to me from one moment to another that I could not wait longerthat I really must take a sounding. So I went on: In general before I go to sleepvery often in bed (its a bad habit, but I confess to it), I read some great poet. In nine cases out of ten its a volume of Jeffrey Aspern. I watched her well as I pronounced that name but I saw nothing wonderful. Why should I indeedwas not Jeffrey Aspern the property of the human race? Oh, we read himwe have read him, she quietly replied. He is my poet of poetsI know him almost by heart. For an instant Miss Tita hesitated; then her sociability was too much for her. Oh, by heartthats nothing! she murmured, smiling. My aunt used to know himto know himshe paused an instant and I wondered what she was going to sayto know him as a visitor. As a visitor? I repeated, staring. He used to call on her and take her out. I continued to stare. My dear lady, he died a hundred years ago! Well, she said mirthfully, my aunt is a hundred and fifty. Mercy on us! I exclaimed; why didnt you tell me before? I should like so to ask her about him. She wouldnt care for thatshe wouldnt tell you, Miss Tita replied. I dont care what she cares for! She must tell meits not a chance to be lost. Oh, you should have come twenty years ago: then she still talked about him. And what did she say? I asked eagerly. I dont knowthat he liked her immensely. And shedidnt she like him? She said he was a god. Miss Tita gave me this information flatly, without expression; her tone might have made it a piece of trivial gossip. But it stirred me deeply as she dropped the words into the summer night; it seemed such a direct testimony. Fancy, fancy! I murmured. And then, Tell me this, pleasehas she got a portrait of him? They are distressingly rare. |
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