"We and grandfather," answered Panna Cervi. "I, too. Half my life passes in Rome and in Florence. There the light is not so sharp at present, and it would be possible to paint whole days. Oh, yes! Who could help loving Italy! And do you know what I think sometimes?" Panna Maria lowered her head, and, opening her lips somewhat, began to look at him carefully, as she always did when listening to him. "I think that every man has two fatherlands: one his own, the nearer, and the other Italy. Only think, all culture, all art, all science, everything came from there. Let us take, for instance, the Renaissance.... Really, all are, if not the children, at least the grandchildren of Italy." "True," answered Panna Maria. "I do not know whether I mentioned that I have a studio in the Via Margutta in Rome, and that when the light becomes too sharp in this studio I am yearning for that one. Here it is--if we should all go to Rome--that would be perfect! Afterward we could go to Warsaw." "There is no way to carry out that plan," answered Panna Maria, with a sad smile. But he approached her quickly, and, taking her two hands, began to speak, looking at her with the greatest tenderness in his eyes. "There is a way, dear lady, there is a way! Do you not divine it?" And when she grew pale from happiness, he pressed both her palms to his breast, and added,-- "Give me thyself and thine--" THAT THIRD WOMAN. CHAPTER I. The rent for that studio in which Antek Svyatetski and I lived and painted, was unpaid, first, because we had about five rubles joint capital, and, second, because we felt a sincere repugnance to paying house-rent. People call us artists squanderers; as for me, I would rather drink away my money than waste it in paying a house-owner. Our house-owner was not a bad fellow though, and, moreover, we found means of defence against him. When he came to dun us, which was usually in the morning, Antek, who slept on a straw bed on the floor, and covered himself with a Turkish curtain used by us as a background for portraits, would rise to a sitting posture, and say in sepulchral tones,-- "It is well that I see you, for I dreamed that you were dead." The house-owner, who was superstitious, and dreaded death evidently, was confused at once and beyond measure. Antek would throw himself back on the straw bed, stretch his legs, fold his hands across his breast, and continue,-- "You were just like this; you had white gloves on your hands, the fingers were too long; on your feet patent-leather boots; for the rest, you were not changed much." Then I would add, "Sometimes those dreams come true."