"Now can't I look at yours?"
"I don't know, I don't understand," the poor woman murmured,
planted there and letting her embarrassed eyes wander all
over my strangeness.
"I mean only from one of those windows--such grand ones
as you have here--if you will let me open the shutters."
And I walked toward the back of the house. When I had advanced
halfway I stopped and waited, as if I took it for granted she would
accompany me. I had been of necessity very abrupt, but I strove
at the same time to give her the impression of extreme courtesy.
"I have been looking at furnished rooms all over the place,
and it seems impossible to find any with a garden attached.
Naturally in a place like Venice gardens are rare. It's absurd
if you like, for a man, but I can't live without flowers."
"There are none to speak of down there." She came nearer to me, as if,
though she mistrusted me, I had drawn her by an invisible thread.
I went on again, and she continued as she followed me: "We have a few,
but they are very common. It costs too much to cultivate them;
one has to have a man."
"Why shouldn't I be the man?" I asked. "I'll work without wages;
or rather I'll put in a gardener. You shall have the sweetest
flowers in Venice."
She protested at this, with a queer little sigh which might
also have been a gush of rapture at the picture I presented.
Then she observed, "We don't know you--we don't know you."
"You know me as much as I know you: that is much more, because you
know my name.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34