But he picked up amazingly little for a knowing Venetian:
it must be added that where there is a perpetual fast there
are very few crumbs on the floor. His cleverness in other ways
was sufficient, if it was not quite all that I had attributed
to him on the occasion of my first interview with Miss Tita.
He had helped my gondolier to bring me round a boatload of furniture;
and when these articles had been carried to the top of the palace
and distributed according to our associated wisdom he organized
my household with such promptitude as was consistent with the fact
that it was composed exclusively of himself. He made me in short
as comfortable as I could be with my indifferent prospects.
I should have been glad if he had fallen in love with Miss
Bordereau's maid or, failing this, had taken her in aversion;
either event might have brought about some kind of catastrophe,
and a catastrophe might have led to some parley.
It was my idea that she would have been sociable, and I
myself on various occasions saw her flit to and fro on
domestic errands, so that I was sure she was accessible.
But I tasted of no gossip from that fountain, and I
afterward learned that Pasquale's affections were fixed
upon an object that made him heedless of other women.
This was a young lady with a powdered face, a yellow cotton gown,
and much leisure, who used often to come to see him.
She practiced, at her convenience, the art of a stringer of beads
(these ornaments are made in Venice, in profusion; she had
her pocket full of them, and I used to find them on the floor
of my apartment), and kept an eye on the maiden in the house.
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