The Aspern Papers

When Mrs. Prest leaves for the summer, six weeks later, the narrator feels that he has accomplished nothing. She suggests that he should act more boldly, to which he replies that “you may push on through a breach but you can’t batter down a dead wall” (73), and that he has seen both women much less often than he expected.

However, he has enjoyed his time at the house, experiencing communion with Aspern through his proximity to Aspern’s muse, employing a gardener to keep his promise of flowers (and hopefully offer an inroad with the women), and devising theories of the relationship between Aspern and Juliana.

Avoiding the apartments in the evenings due to insects, the narrator spends time traveling the canals in his gondola or sitting in a cafe in Venice’s central Piazza. Returning one evening, he finds Tita in the garden. She is pleased to see him, as being outside alone at night makes her nervous. He is surprised at her talkativeness, and that she doesn’t use any of the pauses in conversation to tell him she should be going inside. She tells him that Juliana appears to be declining in health and has been wanting less attention from Tita, whom she ordered outside.