“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.”