And somehow
the splendid common domicile, familiar, domestic, and resonant,
also resembles a theater, with actors clicking over bridges and,
in straggling processions, tripping along fondamentas. As
you sit in your gondola the footways that in certain parts edge
the canals assume to the eye the importance of a stage, meeting it
at the same angle, and the Venetian figures, moving to and fro
against the battered scenery of their little houses of comedy,
strike you as members of an endless dramatic troupe.
I went to bed that night very tired, without being able to compose
a letter to Miss Tita. Was this failure the reason why I became
conscious the next morning as soon as I awoke of a determination
to see the poor lady again the first moment she would receive me?
That had something to do with it, but what had still more was the fact
that during my sleep a very odd revulsion had taken place in my spirit.
I found myself aware of this almost as soon as I opened my eyes;
it made me jump out of my bed with the movement of a man who remembers
that he has left the house door ajar or a candle burning under a shelf.
Was I still in time to save my goods? That question was in my heart;
for what had now come to pass was that in the unconscious cerebration
of sleep I had swung back to a passionate appreciation of Miss
Bordereau's papers. They were now more precious than ever,
and a kind of ferocity had come into my desire to possess them.
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