“What pleasure is there for you in always saying something different from what you think?”

“But I am thinking seriously of engaging nice lodgings on Lung-Arno for you.”

“We shall stop at Verona.”

“For Romeo and Juliet? Of course; of course! Go now; later you would shrug your shoulders if you thought of them. In a month it would be too late for you to go, perhaps.”

Marynia started up at him like a cat; then, turning to her husband, said,—

“Stas, don’t let this gentleman annoy me so!”

“Well,” answered Pan Stanislav, “I will cut his head off, but after lunch.”

Bukatski began to declaim:—

“It is not yet near day:

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,