The Aspern Papers

The narrator speaks with Juliana, who asks him whether he will stay another six months, and he tells her he cannot afford to do so at the price he has been paying. She asks him to make an offer, and at the same time she asks about his writing, questioning his financial success. When he says he is a critic and historian, Juliana asks if he thinks “it’s right to rake up the past” (108). He suspects she knows his secret, a belief that is augmented when she shows him a miniature portrait of Aspern, ostensibly to gain his opinion of its value. Believing that she intends to taunt him, he pretends not to know who the subject is.

Later that day, Tita finds the narrator and asks him to go find a doctor, as she thinks her aunt is dying. He sends his servant, and they go to Juliana’s rooms. The narrator observes that her breath is “so slight as to suggest that no human attention could ever help her more” (118), and gazes around the room. Tita answers his unspoken question by telling him “those things” (118) used to be in a trunk, and he is concerned by her use of past tense.