|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: be able to draw upon them only on a more usual Venetian basis.
I was willing to pay the venerable woman with whom my pecuniary dealings
were such a discord twice as much as any other padrona di casa would
have asked, but I was not willing to pay her twenty times as much.
I told her so plainly, and my plainness appeared to have some success,
for she exclaimed, "Very good; you have done what I asked--
you have made an offer!"
"Yes, but not for half a year. Only by the month."
"Oh, I must think of that then." She seemed disappointed
that I would not tie myself to a period, and I guessed that she
wished both to secure me and to discourage me; to say severely,
|
