At the end of the lectures on the subject “History of Albanian literature II”, May 1968, we asked Prof. Petro Janura (1911-1983) to tell us about his life. I am doing abstraction, the professor told us, because in principle I am not talking about myself. He spoke briefly and focused more on his meetings with the poet Alexander Stavre Drenova (1872 – 1947) in the Romanian capital Bucharest.
The poet, continued prof. dr. Janura, ate in the dining room of an Albanian. The master of the diner, in order not to touch the poet’s sedre, pretended to be making the payment, but actually took some money. Asdreni preferred to walk the park paths and always sat in the same place. It often happened to return to the beautiful restaurant, owned by an Albanian from Korça.
We Albanian students went to the restaurant because of Asdren and the owner’s two beautiful daughters, who ignored us at all. We sat with the poet, who kept the poems in the bottom pocket of his vest. He would take them out and read them to us. One day the owner came, and from the position of the strong man, said to Asdren: Mr. Alexander, you can come to me, secure a bedroom and you would have it all for free in my restaurant. Touched in the seder, the poet rose to his feet and, falling to the floor with his cane, objected: Do not think that you are richer than I am, I have enough to live and live as I want myself… I do not want alms from anyone and he left… Really so as the poet said it was, the owner of the restaurant died, his daughters never married. They turned their father’s property into grapes and plums and were forgotten alive. Asdren lives even though he did not leave property, palaces and heirs – the professor concluded.
