“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.”