I had scruples about going back and yet I had others
about not doing so, for I wanted to put myself on a better footing.
The end of it was that I did return to Venice on the twelfth day;
and as my gondola gently bumped against Miss Bordereau's steps a certain
palpitation of suspense told me that I had done myself a violence
in holding off so long.
I had faced about so abruptly that I had not telegraphed to my servant.
He was therefore not at the station to meet me, but he poked
out his head from an upper window when I reached the house.
"They have put her into the earth, la vecchia," he said to me
in the lower hall, while he shouldered my valise; and he grinned
and almost winked, as if he knew I should be pleased at the news.
"She's dead!" I exclaimed, giving him a very different look.
"So it appears, since they have buried her."
"It's all over? When was the funeral?"
"The other yesterday. But a funeral you could scarcely
call it, signore; it was a dull little passeggio of two gondolas.
Poveretta!" the man continued, referring apparently to Miss Tita.
His conception of funerals was apparently that they were mainly
to amuse the living.
I wanted to know about Miss Tita--how she was and where she was--
but I asked him no more questions till we had got upstairs.
Now that the fact had met me I took a bad view of it,
especially of the idea that poor Miss Tita had had to manage
by herself after the end. What did she know about arrangements,
about the steps to take in such a case? Poveretta indeed!
I could only hope that the doctor had given her assistance
and that she had not been neglected by the old friends
of whom she had told me, the little band of the faithful
whose fidelity consisted in coming to the house once a year.
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