When he had finished reading, the girl cried out in rapture: "What a splendid role!"
"I am willing to wager that you will make a furore in it," remarked
Wladek.
"Yes . . . I feel that I could play it fairly well. 'Garrick, that creator of souls, so mighty in Coriolanus!'" she whispered, repeating a remembered line of the play.
And Janina's face glowed with such fervor, so radiant did she become with her deep inner joy, that Wladek scarcely recognized her.
"You are an enthusiast," he said.
"Yes, because I love art! Give all for art and everything is contained in art! . . . that is my motto. Beyond art I see almost nothing," answered Janina suddenly kindling anew with ardor.
"Even love?" asked Wladek.
"But art appears to me to be a greater and completer expression of the ideal than love . . ." answered Janina.
"But it is more alien to human beings and not so necessary to life as is love. Without art the world could exist, but without love . . . never! Moreover, art causes more painful disappointments than love."
"But it also gives greater joys. Love is an individual emotion; art is a social emotion, a synthesis. One loves it with one's humanity, one suffers for it, but only through art does one sometimes become immortal!"