“With anything you like.” Then he turned to the young couple: “Hire me as a guide to Italy.”
“I do not think of it,” answered Pan Stanislav. “I have been in Belgium and France, no farther. Italy I know not; but I want to see what will interest us, not what may interest thee. I have seen men such as thou art, and I know that through over-refinement they go so far that they love not art, but their own knowledge of it.”
Here Pan Stanislav continued the talk with Marynia.
“Yes, they go so far that they lose the feeling of great, simple art, and seek something to occupy their sated taste, and exhibit their critical knowledge. They do not see trees; they search simply for knots. The greatest things which we are going to admire do not concern them, but some of the smallest things, of which no one has heard; they dig names out of obscurity, occupy themselves in one way or another, persuade themselves and others that things inferior and of less use surpass in interest the better and more perfect. Under his guidance we might not see whole churches, but we might see various things which would have to be looked at through cracks. I call all this surfeit, abuse, over-refinement, and we are simply people.”
Marynia looked at him with pride, as if she would say, “Oh, that is what is called speaking!” Her pride increased when Bukatski said,—
“Thou art quite right.”
But she was indignant when he added,—
“And if thou wert not right, I could not win before the tribunal.”
“I beg pardon,” said Marynia; “I am not blinded in any way.”
“But I am not an art critic at all.”