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 I
tried 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.
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