The Aspern Papers | Page 3

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The text is that of the first American book edition, Macmillan and Co.,
1888.
THE ASPERN PAPERS
I
I had taken Mrs. Prest into my confidence; in truth without her I should
have made but little advance, for the fruitful idea in the whole business
dropped from her friendly lips. It was she who invented the short cut,
who severed the Gordian knot. It is not supposed to be the nature of
women to rise as a general thing to the largest and most liberal view--I
mean of a practical scheme; but it has struck me that they sometimes
throw off a bold conception-- such as a man would not have risen
to--with singular serenity. "Simply ask them to take you in on the
footing of a lodger"-- I don't think that unaided I should have risen to
that. I was beating about the bush, trying to be ingenious, wondering by
what combination of arts I might become an acquaintance, when she
offered this happy suggestion that the way to become an acquaintance
was first to become an inmate. Her actual knowledge of the Misses

Bordereau was scarcely larger than mine, and indeed I had brought
with me from England some definite facts which were new to her.
Their name had been mixed up ages before with one of the greatest
names of the century, and they lived now in Venice in obscurity, on
very small means, unvisited, unapproachable, in a dilapidated old
palace on an out-of-the-way canal: this was the substance of my
friend's impression of them. She herself had been established in Venice
for fifteen years and had done a great deal of good there; but the circle
of her benevolence did not include the two shy, mysterious and, as it
was somehow supposed, scarcely respectable Americans (they were
believed to have lost in their long exile all national quality, besides
having had, as their name implied, some French strain in their origin),
who asked no favors and desired no attention. In the early years of her
residence she had made an attempt to see them, but this had been
successful only as regards the little one, as Mrs. Prest called the niece;
though in reality as I afterward learned she was considerably the bigger
of the two. She had heard Miss Bordereau was ill and had a suspicion
that she was in want; and she had gone to the house to offer assistance,
so that if there were suffering (and American suffering), she should at
least not have it on her conscience. The "little one" received her in the
great cold, tarnished Venetian sala, the central hall of the house, paved
with marble and roofed with dim crossbeams, and did not even ask her
to sit down. This was not encouraging for me, who wished to sit so fast,
and I remarked as much to Mrs. Prest. She however replied with
profundity, "Ah, but there's all the difference: I went to confer a favor
and you will go to ask one. If they are proud you will be on the right
side." And she offered to show me their house to begin with--to row me
thither in her gondola. I let her know that I had already been to look at
it half a dozen times; but I accepted her invitation, for it charmed me to
hover about the place. I had made my way to it the day after my arrival
in Venice (it had been described to me in advance by the friend in
England to whom I owed definite information as to their possession of
the papers), and I had besieged it with my eyes while I considered my
plan of campaign. Jeffrey Aspern had never been in it that I knew of;
but some note of his voice seemed to abide there by a roundabout
implication, a faint reverberation.

Mrs. Prest knew nothing about the papers, but she was interested in my
curiosity, as she was always interested in the joys and sorrows of her
friends. As