"Ah, Pan Stas! I did not even dream of that. I must tell papa. I must." And she ran out of the room. "If I were a poet, I would hang myself," said Bukatski. "Why?" "For if a couple of words, jotted down by the hand of a partner in the house of Bigiel and Company, can produce more impression than the most beautiful sonnet, it is better, to be a miller boy than a poet." But Marynia, in the rapture of her joy, forgot the notebook, so Pan Stanislav showed it to Bukatski, saying, "Read." Bukatski read:-- "After the wedding Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples. Is that well?" "Then it's a journey to Italy?" "Yes. Imagine, she has not been abroad in her life; and Italy has always seemed to her an enchanted land, which she has not even dreamed of seeing. That is an immense delight for her; and what the deuce wonder is there, if I think out a little pleasure for her?" "Love and Italy! O God, how many times Thou hast looked on that! All that love is as old as the world." "Not true! Fall in love, and see if thou'lt find something new in it." "My beloved friend, the question is not in this, that I do not love yet, but in this,--that I love no longer. Years ago I dug that sphinx out of the sand, and it is no longer a riddle to me." "Bukatski, get married." "I cannot. My sight is too faint, and my stomach too weak." "What hindrance in that?" "Oh, seest thou, a woman is like a sheet of paper. An angel writes on one side, a devil on the other; the paper is cut through, the words blend, and such a hash is made that I can neither read nor digest it." "To live all thy life on conceits!" "I shall die, as well as thou, who art marrying. It seems to us that we think of death, but it thinks more of us." At that moment Marynia came in with her father, who embraced Pan Stanislav, and said,-- "Marynia tells me that 't is thy wish to go to Italy after the wedding." "If my future lady will consent." "Thy future lady will not only consent," answered Marynia, "but she has lost her head from delight, and wants to jump through the room, as if she were ten years of age." To which Plavitski answered, "If the cross of a solitary old man can be of use in your distant journey, I will bless you." And he raised his eyes and his hand toward heaven, to the unspeakable delight of Bukatski; but Marynia drew down the raised hand, and, kissing it, said with laughter,-- "There will be time for that, papa; we are going away only after the wedding." "And, speaking plainly," added Bukatski, "then there will be a buying of tickets, and giving baggage to be weighed, and starting,--nothing more." To this Plavitski turned to the cynic, and said, with a certain unction,-- "Have you come to this,--that you look on the blessing of a lonely old man and a father as superfluous?" Bukatski, instead of an answer, embraced Plavitski, kissed him near the waistcoat, and said,--