“Don’t you intend to look at the sights, either?”
“Yes, I will look willingly at what comes before my eyes; it wouldn’t please me if the same thing happened to me that took place in Florence.”
“What happened to you in Florence?”
“I lost my time lamentably, getting enthusiastic over Botticelli, Donatello, and a lot of other foolishness, and when I got back to London it cost me a good deal of work to succeed in forgetting those things and getting myself settled in my financial investigations again. So that now I have decided to see nothing except in leisure moments and without attaching any importance to all those fiddle-faddles.” “But what childishness! Is it going to distract you so much from your work, from that serious work you have in hand, to go and see a few pictures or some statues?”
“To see them, no, not exactly; but to occupy myself with them, yes. Art is a good thing for those who haven’t the strength to live, in realities. It is a good form of sport for old maids, for deceived husbands who need consolation, as hysterical persons need morphine....”
“And for strong people like you, what is there?” asked Laura, ironically.
“For strong people!... Action.”
“And you call lying in bed, reading, action?”
“Yes, when one reads with the intentions I read with.”
“And what are they? What is it you are plotting?”