THE COMEDIENNE

by

WLADYSLAW S. REYMONT

Translated from the Polish by Edmund Obecny

Frontispiece by Frederick Dorr Steele

G. P. Putnam's SonsNew York and London

The Knickerbocker press 1920

Copyright, 1920byG. P. Putnam's Sons

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

The provincial actors of Poland are sometimes colloquially called"comedians, " as distinguished from their more pretentious brethrenof the metropolitan stage in Warsaw. The word, however, does notcharacterize a player of comedy parts. Indeed, the provincials, usually performing in open air theatres, play every conceivablerole, and as in the case of Janina, the heroine of this story, thelife of the Comedienne often embraces far more tragedy than comedy. 

Wladyslaw Reymont is the most widely known of living Polish writers. The Academy of Science of Cracow nominated him for the Nobel Prizefor Literature. He is the author of numerous novels dealing withvarious phases of everyday life in Poland, many of them translatedinto French, German, and Swedish. The Comedienne is the first of hisworks to appear in English. 

Reymont himself was a peasant, rising from the bottom until to-daythe light of his recognized genius shines in the very forefront ofthe Slavic intellectuals. 

It is interesting to note that for several years the author washimself a "Comedian, " traveling about what was then Russian Polandwith a company of provincial players. 

The Comedienne

CHAPTER I

Bukowiec, a station on the Dombrowa railroad, lies in a beautifulspot. A winding line was cut among the beech and pine covered hills, and at the most level point, between a mighty hill towering abovethe woods with its bald and rocky summit, and a long narrow valley, glistening with pools and marshes, was placed the station. Thistwo-story building of rough brick containing the quarters of thestation-master and his assistant, a small wooden house at the sidefor the telegrapher and the minor employees, another similar onenear the last switches for the watchman, three switch-houses atvarious points, and a freight-house were the only signs of humanhabitation. 

Surrounding the station on all sides were the murmuring woods, whileabove, a strip of blue sky, slashed with gray clouds, extended likea wide-spreading roof. 

The sun was veering toward the south and glowing ever brighter andwarmer; the reddish slopes of the rocky hill, with its ragged summitgashed by spring freshets, were bathed in a flood of goldensunlight. 

The calm of a spring afternoon diffused itself over all. The treesstood motionless without a murmur in their boughs. The sharp emeraldleaves of the beeches drooped drowsily, as though lulled to sleep bythe light, the warmth, and the silence. The twitter of birds soundedat rare intervals from the thickets, and only the cry of thewater-fowls on the marshes and the somnolent hum of insects filledthe air. Above the blue line of rails stretching in an endless chainof curves and zigzags, the warm air glowed with shifting hues ofviolet light. 

Out of the office of the station-master came a short, squarely-builtman with light, almost flaxen hair. He was dressed, or rathersqueezed into a stylish surtout and held his hat in his hand while aworkman helped him on with his overcoat. 

The station-master stood before him, stroking his grayish beard withan automatic gesture and smiling in a friendly manner. He also wasstocky, strongly-knit, and broad shouldered, and in his blue eyes, flashing jovially from beneath heavy eyebrows and a square forehead, there also gleamed determination and an unbending will. His straightnose, full lips, a certain contraction of the brows, and the sharpdirect glance of his eyes, that seemed like a dagger-stroke--allthese typified a violent nature. 

"Good-bye, until to-morrow!" . . . Said the blonde man merrily, extending his big hand in farewell. 

"Good-bye! . . . Oh come, let me hug you. To-morrow we'll celebratethe big event with a good drink. "

"I am a little afraid of that to-morrow. "

"Courage, my boy! Don't fear, I give you my word that everythingwill turn out all right. Ill tell Jenka all about it immediately. You will come to us to-morrow for dinner, propose to her, beaccepted by her, in a month you will be married and we shall beneighbors . . . Hey! I like you immensely, Mr. Andrew! I alwaysdreamed of having such a son. Unfortunately I haven't any, but atleast I'll have a son-in-law. "

They kissed each other heartily; the younger jumped into a lightmountain rig waiting near the platform and drove away at a swiftpace along a narrow road leading through the wood. He glanced back, tipped his hat, sent a deeper bow to the windows of the secondstory, and disappeared in the shadow of the trees. After riding alittle way, he sprang from the carriage, ordered the driver to goon, and continued his journey on foot by a short cut. 

The station-master, as soon as his guest had vanished from sight, reentered his office and busied himself with his officialcorrespondence. He was highly satisfied that Grzesikiewicz had askedhim for his daughter's hand and he had promised her to him in thecertainty that she would agree. 

Grzesikiewicz, although not handsome, was sensible and very rich. The woods among which stood the station and a few neighboringfarmhouses were the property of his father. The elder Grzesikiewiczwas primarily a peasant, who had transformed himself from aninnkeeper into a trader and had made a fabulous fortune by the saleof timber and cattle-fodder. 

Many people in the neighborhood still remembered that the old manused to be called Grzesik in his youth. They often ridiculed him forit, but no one upbraided him for changing his name, for he did notpose as an aristocrat, nor did he assume an overbearing air towardothers because of his wealth. 

He was a peasant, and in spite of all changes remained a peasant tothe very core. His son received a thorough education and now helpedhis father. Two years ago he had made the acquaintance of thestation-master's daughter after her return from the academy atKielce and had fallen violently in love with her. His father offeredno opposition, but told him plainly to go ahead and marry if hewanted. 

Andrew met the girl quite often, became ever more deeply enamored ofher, but never dared to speak to her of his love. She liked him, butat the same time her attitude was so frank and straightforward thathis intended words of endearment and confessions of love alwaysfroze upon his lips before he had half uttered them. He felt thatshe belonged to a higher breed of women, inaccessible to such a"churl" as he often frankly called himself; but precisely because ofhis lowly origin he loved her all the more intensely. 

Finally, he decided to speak to her father about it. 

Orlowski received him with open arms, and in his arbitrary way, without consulting his daughter, at once gave him his word that allwould be well. Grzesikiewicz was therefore thinking that Janinawould not refuse him, that she must have already spoken of thematter with her father. 

"Why not!" he whispered to himself. He was young, wealthy, and well, he loved her so dearly. "In a month our marriage will take place, "he added hurriedly and that thought filled him with such joy that hebegan to run swiftly through the woods, breaking branches off thetrees, kicking the rotted stumps that were in his way, knocking offthe heads of spring mushrooms, whistling and smiling. And hethought, too, how glad his mother would be to hear the news. 

She was an old peasant woman, who with the exception of her dresshad not changed in the least on account of her wealth. She thoughtof Janina as of a princess. Her one dream was to have for adaughter-in-law a real lady, an aristocrat whose beauty and highbirth would dazzle her, for her husband and his money and therespect which the entire neighborhood showed him did not sufficeher. She was always conscious of being a peasant and received allhonors with a true peasant-like distrust. 

"Andy!" she often said to her son. "Andy, I wish you would marryMiss Orlowska. That's what I call a real lady! When she looks atyou, she makes you shudder with awe and wish to fall at her feet andbeg some boon of her. . . . She must be very good for whenever shemeets folks in the woods she greets them in God's name, chats withthem, and pets the children . . . Another would be incapable ofthat! Gentle birth will always out. I sent her a basket of mushroomsand when she met me she kissed my hand for it. And she is notlacking in wisdom. Ho! ho! she knows that I have a prize of a son. Andy, marry her. Hurry, and make hay while the sun shines!"

Andrew would usually laugh at his mother's prattle, kiss her hand, and promise her to settle at once everything according to herwishes. 

"We will have a princess in our house and seat her in state in theparlor! Don't fear, Andy, I will not let her soil her hands withanything. I will wait upon her, serve her, hand her everything sheneeds; all she has to do is to read French books and play on thepiano, for that is what a lady is for!" his mother would add. 

And he was just as much of a peasant as she deep within himself;beneath the smooth veneer of the civilized and educated man seetheda primitive unbridled energy and the desire for a wife--a woman torule him. This young Hercules, who, when he felt like it, couldfling unaided into the wagon two-hundred pound sacks of wheat, andwho often had to toil like a common laborer to quell with wearinessthe riotous tides that often rose in his healthy blood, unexhaustedthrough dozens of generations dreamed of Janina and was vanquishedby her beauty and sweetness. 

He now rushed along through the woods like a whirlwind and then flewacross the fields, all green with the first vigorous shoots of thespring wheat, to tell his mother of the happiness awaiting him. Heknew that he would find her in her favorite room whose walls wereadorned with three rows of holy pictures--in gilt frames for thatwas the only luxury that she allowed herself. 

The station-master, in the meanwhile, finished writing his officialreport, signed it, made an entry in his journal, placed it in anenvelope, addressed it to "the Expeditor of the Station ofBukowiec, " and called: "Anthony!"

A servant appeared at the door. 

"Take this to the dispatcher!" ordered Orlowski. 

The servant took the letter without a word and with the solemnestmien in the world laid it upon a table on the other side of thewindow. The station-master arose, stretched himself, took off hisred cap, and walked over to that table; then he put on an ordinarycap with a red border and with the greatest gravity opened theletter that he had written a moment ago. He read it, wrote on theother side a few lines in reply, again signing his name, and thenaddressed it to the "Local Station-Master" and had Anthony deliverit to himself. 

All the officials of the railway knew his mania and made merry athis expense. There was no expediter in Bukowiec, hence he performedboth functions, that of station-master and dispatcher but at twodifferent tables. 

As the station-master he was his own superior, so he often hadmoments of truly insane joy when, noticing some error in hisaccounts, or some omission in his duty as a dispatcher, he wouldindite a complaint against himself. 

Everybody made fun of him, but he paid no attention and persisted infollowing his own way, saying in justification: "Order and systemare the foundations of everything; if they are lacking, all elsefails!"

Having finished his tasks, he locked all the drawers of his desk, glanced out on the platform, and went to his home. He entered not byway of the anteroom, but through the kitchen, for he had to know allthat was going on. He peeped into the stove, gave the fire a jabwith the poker, scolded the servant-girl because of some waterspilled on the floor, and then proceeded to the dining-room. 

"Where is Jenka?" he asked. 

"Miss Janina will be here in a minute, " answered Mrs. Krenska, asort of housekeeper and duenna in one person, a pretty blonde withexpressive features. 

"What are you preparing for dinner?"

"The Director's favorite dish; chicken fricassee, sorrel soup, andcutlets. "

"Extravagance! By God, what extravagance! Soup and one kind of meatis enough even for a king! You will ruin me!"

"But Mr. Director . . . I ordered this meal prepared especially foryou, sir--"

"Bosh! You women have nothing in your heads but fricassees, sweets, and dainties. All that is bosh!"

"You judge us unfairly, sir; we generally economize more than mendo. "

"Aha! You economize so that you can later buy yourselves morefineries . . . I know, you needn't tell me. "

Mrs. Krenska did not answer, but began to set the table for dinner. 

Just then, Janina entered. She was a girl of about twenty-two, tall, well-formed, and broad-shouldered. Her features were not veryregular; she had black eyes, a straight forehead, a trifle toobroad, dark eyebrows strongly accented, a Roman nose, and fullglowing lips. Her eyes had a deep expression indicating anintrospective nature; her lips were tightly drawn together in whatseemed to be a semblance of dignity or hidden temper. Two deep linesclouded her clear forehead. Gorgeous, wavy blonde hair, with areddish tinge, crowned her small round head. Her amber-goldcomplexion had the mellowness of a ripe peach. There was somethingstrange about her voice: an alto that at times dropped into a deepbaritone of almost masculine accents. 

She bowed her head to her father and seated herself on the oppositeside of the table. 

"Grzesikiewicz was here to see me to-day, " said Orlowski slowlyserving the soup, for he always presided over the meals. 

Janina glanced at him calmly. 

"He asked me for your hand, Jenka. "

"What did you tell him, Mr. Director?" quickly interposed Mrs. Krenska. 

"That is our affair, " he answered sternly. "Our affair . . . I toldhim all would be well, " he said, turning to Janina. "He will be hereto-morrow for dinner and you can talk it over between yourselves. "

"What's the use, father! Since you have told him that all would bewell, you can receive him yourself to-morrow and tell him from methat everything is far from well. . . . I do not wish to speak withhim. To-morrow I will go to Kielce!"

"Bosh! If you were not a crazy fool, you would understand what anexcellent husband he would make for you! Even though Grzesikiewiczis a peasant he's worth more to you than a prince, for he wantsyou . . . And he wants you because he's a fool. He could afford totake his pick of the best. . . . You ought to be grateful to him forchoosing you. He will propose to you to-morrow and in a month fromnow you will be Mrs. Grzesikiewicz. "

"I will not be his wife! If he can get another, let him do so. "

"I swear to God that you will be Mrs. Grzesikiewicz!"

"No! I will not have him or anyone else! I will not marry!"

"Fool!" he retorted brutally. "You will marry because you need aroof over your head, food and dress, and someone to look afteryou. . . . I don't intend to ruin myself completely for yoursake . . . And when I am gone, what then?"

"I have my dower; I will get along without the aid of Grzesikiewiczor anyone like him. Aha, so your object in wanting to marry me issimply to provide for my support!" She regarded him defiantly. 

"And what of it? For what else do women marry?" "They marry forlove and marry those whom they love. "

"You're a fool, I tell you once again, " he shouted vehemently, helping himself to another portion of chicken. "Love is nothing butthis sauce, you can eat the chicken just as well without it; sauceis nothing but an invention, a freak and a modern fad!"

"No self-respecting woman sells herself to the first man that comesalong merely because he is capable of supporting her!"

"You're a fool. They all do it, they all sell themselves. Love ischildish prattle and nonsense. Don't irritate me. "

"It is not a question of irritating you, father, or whether love isnonsense or not; it is a question of my future which you dispose ofas though it belonged to you. Already at the time that Zielenkiewiczproposed to me. I told you that I do not intend to marry at all. "

"Zielenkiewicz is merely Zielenkiewicz, but Grzesikiewicz is a verylord, and what I call a man! He is kind-hearted, wise for did he notgraduate from the academy at Dublany and as strong as a bull. Afellow who can master the wildest horse and who, when he struck apeasant in the face the other day, knocked out six of his teeth withone blow such a fellow is not good enough for you! I swear he isideal, the highest of all ideals!"

"Yes, your ideal is an incomparable one; he'd make a goodprize-fighter. "

"You are as crazy as your mother was. Wait! Andrew will muzzle youand show you how such women are ruled. He will not spare the whip. "

Janina violently shoved aside her chair, threw her spoon on thetable, and left the room, slamming the door after her. 

"Don't sit there gaping, but order the cutlets served for me, " heshouted at Mrs. Krenska, who gazed after Janina with a sympatheticlook. 

She handed him the dish with a servile mien, whispering to him witha solicitous tone in her voice, "Mr. Director, you must not irritateyourself so, it is not good for your health. "

"Such is my fate!" he drawled. "I can't even eat in peace, withouthaving to listen to these everlasting squabbles. "

He then began to air at length his grievances and complaints overJanina's stubbornness, her wilful character, and his continualtroubles with her. 

Mrs. Krenska obsequiously pretended to agree with him, andoccasionally emphasized some detail. She complained discreetly thatshe also had to bear a great deal because of Janina, sighed deeply, and wheedled him at every opportunity. She brought in the coffee andarrack and poured it for him herself. While doing so she fawned uponhim, touched his hands and arms, as though accidentally, lowered hereyes, and kept up a continual flirtation, trying to awaken somespark in him. 

Orlowski's anger slowly abated, and having drunk his coffee, heejaculated, "Thank you! I swear to God that you alone understandme. . . . You are a kind woman, Mrs. Krenska. "

"Mr. Director, if I could only show you what I feel, what--" shefaltered, dropping her eyes. 

Orlowski pressed her hand and went to his own room for a nap. 

Mrs. Krenska ordered the table cleared and afterwards, when she wasalone, took up some sewing and sat near the window facing thestation platform. Occasionally she would look up from her work andgaze at the woods, or at the long line of rails, but everythingseemed deserted and silent. Finally, unable to sit still any longer, she arose and began to pace around the table with a soft, felinestep, smiling and repeating to herself: "I will get him, I will gethim! At last I will find a little rest in my life, my wanderingswill come to an end!"

Scenes from the past floated before her memory: whole years ofwandering with a company of provincial actors. Krenska had abandonedthe theater because she managed to catch a young fellow who marriedher. She lived with him for two whole years . . . Two years whichshe recalled with bitterness. Her husband was insanely jealous andfrequently beat her. 

At last he died and she was free, but she had no longer any desireto return to the theater. She shuddered at the thought of resumingthat eternal pilgrimage from town to town and the everlastingpoverty of a provincial actor's life. Moreover, she realized thatshe was growing old and homely. So she sold all her householdfurnishings, received a pension from the management to which herhusband had belonged, and for half a year played the role of awidow. She was very eager to marry a second time and sedulouslyspread her nets, but all in vain, for her own temperament stood inthe way. With money in her pocket, there awakened in her again theformer actress with her careless and sporty disposition and cravingfor pleasure and enjoyment. Being still seductive, she wassurrounded by a swarm of various admirers with whom she squanderedall she had, together with the reputation which she had succeeded inestablishing for herself with the aid of her husband. 

Krenska had no abilities of any kind, but she possessed a great dealof cleverness, so, instead of resigning herself to despair when thelast of her admirers had forsaken her, she inserted an advertisementin the Kielce Gazette reading: "Middle-aged widow of a governmentofficial desires position as a housekeeper to widower, or as asocial secretary. "

She did not have to wait long for results. Her advertisement wasanswered in person by Orlowski, who was badly in need of ahouse-keeper, for Janina was still attending school and he could nothimself manage the servants. Krenska seemed so quiet, humble, andfull of grief over the loss of her husband that he did not ask herany questions, but engaged her immediately. 

Orlowski was a widower who possessed a good salary, a few thousanddollars in cash, and an only daughter--an absent daughter whom hedetested. Krenska at first tried to turn the heads of the stationofficials, but very soon sized up the situation and immediatelybegan playing a new role whereby she perseveringly strove to attainthe last act: Matrimony. 

Orlowski became used to her. She knew how to make herselfindispensable and always to show that indispensability so skillfullythat it did not offend. 

Moreover, the gray autumn days and the long wintry evenings broughther nearer to her goal, for Orlowski, who was fifty-eight years oldand had rheumatism, was always a maniac, but during his rheumaticattacks he would become a raving maniac. She alone knew how tomollify and manage him with her inherent cleverness, sharpened bymany years of theatrical experience. There was only one obstacle inher way--Janina. Krenska realized that as long as Janina was at homeshe could accomplish nothing. She decided to wait and waitedpatiently. 

Orlowski loved his daughter with hatred, that is, he loved herbecause he hated her. He hated her because she was the daughter ofhis wife, whose memory he violently cursed--his wife, who after twoyears of conjugal life, left him, because she could no longer endurehis tyranny and eccentricities. He brought legal action against herand tried to force her to return to him, but their separation becamea permanent one. He raved with anger, but his relentlessness, unexampled stubbornness, and insane pride prevented him from begginghis wife to return, which she might have done, for she was a goodwoman. Her only failing was an illness that baffled all theprovincial doctors. She had the soul of a mimosa, so sensitive thatevery tear, pain, or grief would cast her into despair. Moreover shehad an abnormal fear of thunderstorms, showers, frogs, dark rooms, unlucky numbers, and all loud sounds; so this husband of hers waskilling her with his brutality. 

Within a few years after their separation she died of nervousprostration, leaving Janina, who was then ten years old. Orlowskiimmediately took her away from his wife's family by force. 

An additional reason for his hatred of Janina was because shehappened to be a girl. With his wild and violent disposition hewanted a son on whom he could exercise not only his fists, but alsohis everyday humor. He had dreamed of a son and fancied that hewould be a big and half-wild fellow, energetic and as strong as anoak. 

He immediately sent Janina to a boarding-school, seeing her onlyonce a year during her vacation. She spent the Christmas and Easterholidays at her aunt's home. 

For these vacations, which were now in their third year, he wouldwait impatiently, for he was weary of being alone at his remotestation. And as soon as Janina arrived hostilities between themwould begin. 

Janina grew up rapidly, and her mental and physical development wereof the best, but having been conceived, born, and reared in anenvironment of continual hatred and quarrels and nursed with thetears and complaints of her mother at her father's brutality, shenaturally disliked him and feared his scorn. This developed in hersecretiveness and resentment. She rebelled against his despotism andniggardliness. 

Janina inherited a few thousand rubles from her mother, and herfather told her plainly that the interest on that sum would have tosuffice her, for he did not intend to give her a single kopeck. Sheattended a first-class boarding-school, but after paying her feesand, later, her expenses at the academy she had so little left forher immediate needs that she had to continually think of how to makeends meet and to feel ashamed because of her worn shoes and dresses. 

In a few years her classmates began to fear her, even the teachersoften gave way to her, for she had her father's violent characterand brooked no restraint. She never wept nor complained, but she wasever ready to avenge her wrongs with her fists, irrespective of whatmight happen to her. At the same time she was always one of thebrightest scholars in her class. 

All sincerely disliked her, but had to grant her supremacy. Sheherself became conscious of her superiority over the throng of herclassmates, who treated her with aloofness, laughed at her shabbydresses and shoes, and barred her from all intimacy with them. Latershe paid them back with unrelenting vengeance. 

There were times when Orlowski was proud of Janina and warmlydefended her before his friends, for the whole neighborhood wasshocked at her tomboyish adventures. She would tramp through thewoods late at night and in all kinds of weather, alone, like a youngwild-boar separated from the herd. She was not a bit ashamed ofclimbing up trees for birds' nests, nor of riding astride inhorse-races with the peasant lads on the pasturage. To avoid herfather she would stay away from home for whole days at a time, dreaming of her return to school, while at school she would againdream of returning to the solitude of her home. 

Such was Janina up to about the eighteenth year of her life when shegraduated from high school and returned home for good. In heroutward life she quieted down, but inwardly she became even morerestless than before. 

With her friend, Helen Walder, ideally beautiful and day dreaming ofthe emancipation of woman, she had parted. Helen went to Paris tostudy science. Janina had no desire to go, for she didn't feel theneed of any knowledge of an abstract nature. She yearned forsomething that would exert a more potent influence upon hertemperament something that would absorb her whole being for alltime. 

Men, Janina avoided almost entirely, for they angered her with theirimpudence; the women bored her with their everlasting repetition ofgossip, troubles, and intrigues. People in general seemed to keepaloof from her. All sorts of stories about her, more or less false, were circulated in the neighborhood. 

She was a puzzle to all who knew her. Meanwhile, in her own soul shewas waging a battle with her desires, to which she knew not how togive a definite form. She asked herself why she lived. She buriedherself in books, but found no comfort there. She felt that she mustfind something that would absorb and thrill her entire being, feltthat she would find it sooner or later, but in the meanwhile theagony of waiting almost drove her mad. 

Zielenkiewicz, the owner of a heavily mortgaged village, proposed toher. Janina laughed outright at him and told him to his face thatshe did not intend to pay his debts with her dower. 

She had reached her twenty-first year and was beginning to losepatience, when a commonplace occurrence decided her whole future. 

In a nearby town an amateur theatrical was being arranged. Threeone-act plays were selected and the parts had already been assigned, when there came a hitch: no one wanted to accept the role of Pawlowain Blizinski's The March Bachelor. 

The dramatic coach insisted on presenting this play, for he wantedto twit a certain neighbor with it, but none of the ladies wouldplay the parts of Pawlowa or Eulalia. 

Someone proposed that they request Janina Orlowska to take the partof Pawlowa, for they knew that she dared anything. She accepted itrather indifferently, and Mrs. Krenska, in whom memories of herhistrionic past had suddenly awakened, induced Orlowski to announcethat an amateur had also been found for the part of Eulalia. 

The rehearsals lasted for about three months, for the cast of theplayers was changed several times--the usual fuss and confusion ofprovincial theaters where none of the ladies want to assume the partof an old, quarrelsome, or shady character, or that of a maid, butall wish to be heroines. 

Krenska, whom Janina kept at a respectful distance from herself, never confiding anything to her nor asking her advice, found a goodreason in the play for approaching her. She began to give herlessons in the art of acting, untiringly. 

So absorbed did she become with her part, so deeply did she enterinto the character, and so well did it fit her that she gave a verycreditable presentation. She was every inch a peasant woman, agenuine Pawlowa, and received a clamorous ovation at the end of theplay. This momentary triumph and the consciousness of her powerfilled her with a wild and unrestrained joy. It was with a feelingof intense regret that she saw the final curtain fall. 

Krenska also created quite a furore. It was a role that she hadoften played with great success on the real stage. During theintermissions everyone was speaking only of her and of Janina. 

"A comedienne! A born actress!" whispered the ladies, regardingJanina with a sort of contemptuous pity. 

Orlowski, whom they thanked and congratulated for having so talenteda daughter and companion, shrugged his shoulders. He was, however, satisfied, for he went behind the scenes, petted Janina, and kissedKrenska's hand. 

"Good, good! . . . Nothing extraordinary, but at least I don't haveto feel ashamed of you, " was all the praise that he gave them. 

After the performance Janina drew closer to Krenska and the latter, in a moment of weakness, betrayed the secret concerning her pastlife. She revealed to Janina a new realm, wondrous and alluring. 

She listened with rapt attention to Krenska's accounts of the stage, her numerous appearances and triumphs, and the vivid life of anactor. As she related her experiences Krenska was herself carriedaway by enthusiasm and painted them in glowing colors; she no longerremembered the miseries of that life and held up only the brightestpictures to the gaze of the enraptured girl. She pulled out of hertrunk faded and musty copies of roles she had once impersonated, read them to Janina and played them, stirred by memories of thepast. 

All this fascinated the girl and awoke in her certain strongdesires, but it did not, as yet, absorb her; it was not, as yet, that mysterious "something" for which she had been waiting so long. 

She began to read with great interest the theatrical criticisms andthe details about actors in the newspapers. Finally, whetheractuated by ennui or by an instinctive impulse, she bought acomplete set of Shakespeare's works and, forthwith, was lost! Shefound that "something" for which she had sought so long; she foundher hero, her aim, her ideal--it was the theater. She devouredShakespeare with all the inherent intensity of her nature. 

It would be difficult to epitomize the violent upheaval that nowtook place in Janina's soul, the wild soaring of her imagination, and the enlargement and expansion of her whole being. There swarmedabout her a vast throng of characters evil, noble, base, petty, heroic, and struggling souls. There passed through her such tonesand words, such overwhelming thoughts and emotions that she felt asthough the whole universe was contained in her soul!

She became consumed with a desire for the theater and for unusualemotions. The winters seemed too warm for her, the snowfalls toolight; the springs dragged along too slowly, the summers were toocool, the autumns too dry; all this she visioned in her imaginationin far grander outlines. She wished to see the acme of beauty, theacme of evil, and every act magnified to titanic proportions. 

Orlowski knew a little about her "disease, " but he smiled at it inscorn. 

"You comedienne!" he called her, scoffingly. 

Krenska would add fuel to this fire, for she wished at any cost tosee Janina leave home. She persuaded her of her talent and warmlypraised the theatrical career. 

Janina could not pluck up courage to take the decisive step. Shefeared those dark and vague presentiments and an unaccountablefeeling of terror at times would seize upon her. She could notsummon the necessary determination. A storm of some kind only coulduproot her and carry her far away from home in the same way as ituprooted the trees and scattered them over the desolate fields. Shewas waiting now for some chance happening to cast her into theworld. Krenska, in the meanwhile, kept her informed of theactivities of the provincial theatrical companies. Janina madecertain preparations and savings. Her father paid her regularly theinterest on her inheritance and this enabled her in a year's time tolay aside about two hundred rubles. 

Grzesikiewicz's proposal and her father's insistance on her marriageroused a stormy protest in her. 

"No, no, no!" she repeated to herself, pacing excitedly up and downher room. "I will not marry!"

Janina had never contemplated matrimony seriously. At times thevision of a great, overwhelming love would gleam through her mind, and she would dream of it for a while; but of marriage she had nevergiven a thought. 

She even liked Grzesikiewicz, because he would never speak lightlyto her about love, nor enact those amorous comedies to which otheradmirers had accustomed her. She liked him for the simplicity withwhich he would relate all that he had to suffer at school, how hewas abused and humiliated as the son of a peasant and innkeeper andhow he paid them back in peasant fashion with his fists. He wouldsmile while relating this to her, but there was in his smile a traceof sorrow. 

She opened the door of her father's room and was about to tell himabruptly and decisively that there was no need of Grzesikiewicz'scoming, but Orlowski was already enjoying his after-dinner nap, seated in a big arm-chair with his feet propped against thewindow-sill. The sun was shining straight into his face which wasalmost entirely bronzed from sunburn. 

Janina withdrew. 

"No, no, no! . . . Even though I have to run away from home, I willnot marry!" she repeated to herself fiercely. 

But immediately there followed this determination a feeling ofwomanly helplessness. 

"I will go to my uncle's house. . . . Yes! . . . And from there Iwill go to the stage. No one can force me to stay here. "

Thereupon, the blood would rush to her head with indignation and shewould immediately gaze with courage into the future, determined tomeet anything that might happen rather than submit. 

She heard her father arise and then go to the window; she listenedto the station bells, and to the jabbering of a few Jews who wereboarding the train; she saw the red cap of her father, and theyellow striped cap of the telegrapher conversing through his windowwith some lady; she saw and heard all, but understood nothing, soabsorbed was she in thought. 

Krenska entered and in her habitual way began to circle around thetable with quiet, cat-like motion before she spoke. Her face bore anexpression of sympathy and there was tenderness in her voice. 

"Miss Janina!"

The young woman glanced at her. 

"No! I assure you that I will not!" she said with emphasis. 

"Your father gave Grzesikiewicz his word of honor . . . He willdemand unquestioning obedience . . . What will come of it?"

"No! I will not marry! . . . My father can retract his word; hecannot compel me--"

"Yes . . . But there will be an awful rumpus, an awful rumpus!"

"I have stood so many, I can stand some more. "

"I am afraid that this one will not end so smoothly. Your father hassuch a dreadful temper. . . . I can't understand how you are able tobear as much as you do. . . . If I were in your place, Miss Janina, I know what I should do . . . And do it now, immediately!"

"I am anxious to know . . . Give me your advice. "

"First of all, I would leave home to avoid all this trouble beforeit begins. I would go to Warsaw. "

"Well, and what would you do next?" asked Janina with tremblingvoice. 

"I would join some theater and let happen what will!"

"Yes, that's a good idea, but . . . But--"

And she broke off, for the old helplessness and fears reassertedthemselves. She sat silent without answering Krenska. 

Janina put on a jacket and felt hat and taking a stick wandered offinto the woods. 

She climbed to the top of that rocky hill from which spread outbelow her a wide view of the woods, the villages beyond them, and anendless expanse of fields. She sat gazing about her for a while, butthe calm that reigned all around, contrasted with the feeling ofunquiet and foreboding in her own soul, as before an impendingstorm, gave her no peace. 

At dusk Janina returned home. She did not speak either to her fatheror to Krenska but immediately after supper went to her own room andsat reading George Sand's Consuelo until a late hour. 

During the night she was perturbed with unquiet dreams from whichshe started up every now and then, perspiring heavily, and awokefully before dawn, unable to sleep any longer. She lay upon her bedwith wide open eyes, gazing fixedly at the ceiling on whichflickered a patch of light reflected from the station lamp. A trainwent roaring by and she listened for a long while to its rhythmicrumbling and clatter that seemed like a whole choir of voices andtones streaming in through her window. 

At the farther end of the room, steeped in a twilight full of palegleams that flickered like severed rays from a light long sinceextinguished, she seemed to see apparitions and vague outlines ofmysterious scenes, figures, and sounds. Her wearied brain peopledthe room with the phantoms of hallucination. She beheld, as it were, a vast edifice with a long row of columns that seemed to emerge fromthe dusk and take shape. In the morning she arose so worn out thatshe could scarcely stand on her feet. 

She heard her father issuing orders for a sumptuous dinner and sawthem making preparations. Krenska circled about her on tiptoe andsmiled at her with a subtle, ironical smile that irritated Janina. She felt dazed with exhaustion and the storm that was brewing withinher, and beheld everything with indifference, for her mind wascontinually dwelling on the impending battle with her father. Shetried to read or occupy herself with something, but was too nervous. 

She ran off to the woods, but immediately came back, for she knewnot what to do there. A lethargy seemed to take hold of her andbenumb her with an ever greater fear. Try as she would, Janina couldnot shake off this depressing mood. 

She sat down at the piano and began mechanically to play scales, butthe somnolent monotony of the tones only added to her nervousness. Later she played some of Chopin's Nocturnes, lingered over thosemysterious tones that seemed like strains from another world, fullof tears, pain, cries of anguish, and bleak despair; the radiance ofcold moonlight nights, moans like the whisper of departing souls, the laughter of parting, the soft vibrations of subtle, sad life. 

Suddenly, Janina stopped playing and burst into tears. She wept fora long time, not knowing why she wept she who since her mother'sdeath had not shed a single tear. 

For the first time in her life which up till now had been onecontinuous struggle, revolt, and protest she felt overcome bydistress. There awakened in her an irresistible longing to share hersorrows with someone, a longing to confide to some sympathetic heartthose bewildered thoughts and feelings, that unexplainable miseryand fear. She yearned for sympathy, feeling that her distress wouldbe smaller, her anguish less violent, her tears not so bitter, ifshe could open her heart before some sincere woman friend. 

Krenska summoned her to dinner, announcing that Grzesikiewicz wasalready waiting. 

She wiped away the traces of tears from her eyes, arranged her hairand went. 

Grzesikiewicz kissed her hand and seated himself beside her at thetable. 

Orlowski was in a holiday humor and every now and then twittedJanina and hurled triumphant glances at her. 

Grzesikiewicz was silent and uneasy; occasionally he would speak, but in such a low tone, Janina could scarcely hear what he said. Mrs. Krenska was plainly excited. 

A gloomy atmosphere hung over them all. The dinner dragged wearilyon. Orlowski at times became wrapt in thought, and would then knithis brows, angrily tug at his beard, and fling murderous glances athis daughter. 

After dinner they went to the parlor. Black coffee and cognac wereserved. Orlowski quickly gulped down his coffee and left the room, kissing Janina on the forehead and growling some unintelligibleremark as he departed. 

They remained alone. 

Janina kept looking out of the window. Grzesikiewicz, all flushedand flustered and unlike himself, began to say something, takinglittle swallows of coffee in between, until, finally, he drained itoff at the gulp and shoved his cup and saucer aside so vigorouslythat they went tumbling over the table. 

She laughed at his violence and embarrassment. 

"At a moment like this a man could swallow a lamp without noticingit, " he remarked. 

"That would be quite a feat, " she answered, again bursting intoempty laughter. 

"Are you laughing at me?" he asked uneasily. 

"No, only the idea of swallowing a lamp seemed comical. "

They relapsed into silence. Janina fidgeted with the window-shade, while Grzesikiewicz tore at his gloves and impulsively bit hismoustache; he was literally shaking with emotion. 

"It is so hard for me, so awfully hard!" he began, raising his eyesto her entreatingly. 

"Why?" she queried tersely and evasively. 

"Well, because . . . Because . . . For God's sake, I can't stand itany longer! No, I can't endure this torment any longer, so I'll comeright out with it: I love you, Miss Janina, and beg you for yourhand, " he cried aloud, at once sighing with immense relief. Butimmediately he struck his forehead with his hand and, takingJanina's hand, began anew:

"I have loved you ever so long, but feared to tell you. And now Idon't know how to express it as I would like to. . . . I love youand beg you to be my wife. . . . "

He kissed her hand fervently and gazed at her with his blue, honesteyes burning with blind love. His lips twitched nervously and apallor overspread his features. 

Janina arose from her chair and, looking straight into his eyes, answered slowly and quietly: "I do not love you. "

All her nervousness had vanished. 

Grzesikiewicz recoiled violently, as though someone had struck him, as though he did not understand. He said with a trembling voice:

"Miss Janina . . . Be my wife . . . I love you!"

"I do not love you . . . I cannot therefore marry you . . . I willnot marry at all!" she answered in the same cold tone, but at thelast word her voice wavered with an accent of pity for him. 

"God!" cried Grzesikiewicz, holding his hand to his head. "What doesit mean? . . . You will not marry! . . . You will not be mywife! . . . You do not love me!"

He threw himself impulsively on his knees before her, seized herhands, and, covering them with kisses, began, with what seemedalmost tears of feverish terror, to entreat her fervently, humbly. 

"You do not love me? . . . You will love me in time. I swear that I, my mother, and my father will be your slaves. I will wait if youwish . . . Say that in a year, or two, or even five, you will loveme. . . . I will wait. . . . I swear to you that I will wait! But donot say no to me! For God's sake do not say that, for I shall go madwith despair! How can it be? You do not love me! . . . But I loveyou . . . We all love you . . . We cannot live without you! . . . No. . . . Your father told me that . . . That . . . And now . . . God! I will go crazy! What are you doing to me! What are you doingto me!"

Springing up from the floor he fairly cried aloud with pain. 

Mechanically he pulled off his gloves, tore them to pieces and flungthem on the floor, buttoned up his coat to the topmost button, andstruggling to control himself said: "Farewell, Miss Janina. Butalways . . . Everywhere . . . Forever . . . I will . . . " hewhispered with great effort, bowed his head and went toward thedoor. 

"Andrew!" she called after him forcibly. 

Grzesikiewicz turned back from the door. 

"Andrew, " she said in a pleading voice, "I do not love you, but Irespect you. . . . I cannot marry you, I cannot . . . But I willalways think of you as of a noble man. Surely you will understandthat it would be a base thing for me to marry a man whom I do notlove . . . I know that you detest falsehood and hypocrisy and so doI. Forgive me for hurting you, but I also suffer . . . I also am nothappy oh no!"

"Janina if you would only . . . If you would only . . . "

She regarded him with such a sorrowful expression that he becamesilent. Then slowly he left the room. 

Janina still sat there dazed, staring at the door through which hehad gone, when Orlowski entered the room. 

He had met Grzesikiewicz on the stairs and in his face had read whathad happened. 

Janina uttered a little cry of fear, so great a change had come overhim. His face was ashen-gray, his eyes seemed to bulge from theirsockets, his head swayed violently from side to side. 

He seated himself near the table and with a quiet, smothered voiceasked, "What did you tell Grzesikiewicz?"

"What I told you yesterday; that I do not love him and will notmarry him!" she answered boldly, but she was startled at the seemingcalm with which her father spoke. 

"Why?" he queried sharply, as though he did not understand her. 

"I told him that I do not love him and do not wish to marry atall. . . . "

"You are a fool! . . . A fool! . . . A fool!" he hissed at herthrough his tightly set teeth. 

She regarded him calmly and all her old obstinacy returned. 

"I said that you would marry him. I gave my word that you wouldmarry him, and you will marry him!"

"I will not! . . . No one is able to force me!" she answeredsullenly, looking with steady gaze into her father's eyes. 

"I will drag you to the altar. I will compel you! . . . Youmust! . . . " he cried hoarsely. 

"No!"

"You will marry Grzesikiewicz, I tell you; I, your father, commandyou to do so! You will obey me immediately, or I will kill you!"

"Very well, kill me, if you want to, but I'll not obey you!"

"I will drive you out of this house!" he shouted. 

"Very well!"

"I will disown you!"

"Very well!" she answered with growing determination. Janina feltthat with each word her heart was hardening with greater resolve. 

"I'll drive you out . . . Do you hear? . . . And even though you dieof hunger, I never want to hear of you again!"

"Very well!"

"Janina! I warn you, don't drive me to extremity. I beg you marryGrzesikiewicz, my daughter, my child! . . . Isn't it for your good?You have no one but me in the world and I am old . . . I willdie . . . And you will remain alone without protection orsupport. . . . Janina, you have never loved me! . . . If you knewhow unhappy I have been throughout my life, you would take pity onme!"

"No! . . . Never! . . . " she answered, unmoved even by his pleading. 

"I ask you for the last time!" he shouted. 

"For the last time I tell you no!" she flung back at him. 

Orlowski hurled his chair to the floor with such force that it wasshattered to pieces. He tore open the collar of his shirt, soviolent was the paroxysm of fury that had seized him, and with thebroken arm of the chair in his hand, he sprang at Janina to strikeher, but the cold, almost scornful, expression of her face broughthim to his senses. 

"Get out of here!" he roared, pointing to the door, "get out! . . . Do you hear? I turn you out of my home forever! . . . You will neveragain pass this threshold while I live, for I will kill you like amad dog and throw you out of the door! . . . I have no longer anydaughter!"

"Very well, I will go . . . " she answered mechanically. 

"I no longer have any daughter! Henceforth I don't want to know youor hear anything of you! . . . Go and perish . . . I will killyou! . . . " he shouted, rushing up and down the room like a madman. 

His insane violence now burst out in full force. He rushed out ofthe house and from the window Janina saw him running toward thewoods. 

She sat silent, dumb, and as though turned to ice. She had expectedeverything, but never this. She burned with resentment but not asingle tear clouded her eye. She gazed about her distractedly, forthat hoarse cry still rang in her ears: "Get out of here! . . . Getout!"

"I will go, I will go . . . " she whispered in a humble and brokenvoice through the tears that filled her heart, "I will go. . . . "

"God, my God! why am I so unhappy?" she cried after a while. 

Krenska, who had heard all, approached her. With feigned tears inher eyes she began to comfort her, but Janina gently pushed heraway. It was not that which she needed; not that kind of comforting. 

"My father has driven me out . . . I must leave . . . " she said, marveling at her own words. 

"But that is preposterous! . . . Surely your father can beplacated. . . . "

"No . . . I will not stay here any longer. I have enough of thistorment . . . Enough . . . . "

"Are you going to your aunt's house?"

Janina was sunk in thought for a moment, but suddenly her gloomyface brightened with a flash of determination. 

"I will go and join the theater. The die is cast! . . . "

Krenska glanced at her sharply. 

"Come, help me pack my trunk. I will leave on the next train. "

"The next passenger train does not go to Kielce. "

"It doesn't matter. I will go to Strzemieszyce, and from there, bythe Viennese line to Warsaw. . . . "

"If I were you, Janina, I'd think it over. . . . Later you mayregret it. . . . "

"What's done can't be undone! . . . "

And without paying any further attention to Krenska's remarks, Janina began to pack. Her lingerie, her dresses, her books andnotes, and various trifles she carefully folded away into herschool-day trunk, as though she were returning from her vacation. 

At the end she bade farewell to Krenska indifferently. Outwardly sheappeared calm and cool, while a slight tremor of her lips alone, andan inner tremor that she could not still, were the only traces ofthe storm. 

She ordered her things carried downstairs, and, having still anhour's time, she went to the woods. 

"Forever . . . " she said in a subdued tone, as though addressing thetrees that seemed to bend toward her with a mournful murmur andrustling of their leaves. 

"Forever! . . . " she whispered, gazing at the crimson gleams of thesetting sun that filtered through the tangled branches of thebeeches and shone upon the ground. 

The woods seemed wrapt in a great silence, as though they werelistening to her words of final farewell and dumbly wondering howone who had been born and reared in their midst, who had lived withtheir life, who had dreamed so many dreams in their embracingsilence, could bid farewell. 

The trees murmured mournfully. A sigh like a song of farewell and asad reproach echoed through the wood. The ferns stirred with agentle motion, the young hazel leaves fluttered restlessly, thepines rustled softly with their slender needles the whole woodtrembled and became alive with a prolonged moan. The song of thebirds sounded in broken, startled little snatches, while over thesky, and over the earth carpeted with leaves and golden mosses andsnowy valley-lilies, and through the whole verdant wood thereflitted mysterious shadows, sounds and calls like the echo ofsorrowful sobbing. 

"Stay with me! . . . Stay!" the wood seemed to say. 

The torrent roared noisily, swept away the broken boughs thatimpeded its course, circled and descended in a cloud of foam, acascade of mist shining in the sun with all the colors of therainbow; it went irresistibly onward, triumphantly, whispering:"Go! . . . Go!"

Then there followed a great silence, broken only by the hum ofinsects and the dull clatter of falling acorns. 

"Forever! . . . " whispered Janina. 

She arose and started back toward the station. She walked slowly, looking about her with fond, lingering gaze upon the trees, thewoodpaths, and the hillsides. 

Then she began to think of the new existence before her. Thereslowly arose in her soul a certain self-conscious power andincreasing courage. 

When she spied her father on the station platform, not so much as atremor disturbed her. Already there loomed between them that newworld which already lured her. 

She even went to the station-master's office for a ticket. She stoodbefore the window and asked for it in a loud voice. Orlowski (for hesold the tickets himself) raised his head with a violent start andsomething like a red shadow passed over his face, but he did notutter a word. He calmly handed her her change and stared at hercoldly, stroking his beard. 

On leaving, she turned her head and met his burning gaze. He startedviolently back from the window and swore aloud, while she went on, only somehow she went more slowly and her legs trembled under her. That gleam of his eyes, as though bloody with tears, struck deepinto her heart. 

The train arrived and she got on. From the window of the car shestill kept gazing at the station. Krenska waved to her with ahandkerchief from the house and pretended she was wiping away tears. 

Orlowski, in a red cap and immaculately white gloves, paced up anddown the platform with a stiff official air and did not glance evenonce in her direction. 

The bell rang and the train pulled out. 

The telegrapher was bowing his farewell to her, but she did not seehim; she saw only how her father slowly turned about and entered theoffice. 

"Forever! . . . " she whispered. Orlowski came in for supper at theusual hour. 

Krenska, in spite of her joy at Janina's departure, was uneasy; sheglanced into his eyes with a feeling of fear, walked about even moresilently than usual, and was humbler and smaller than ever before. 

Orlowski seemed to be wrestling with himself, for he did not burstforth in curses and did not even mention Janina. 

On the following day only he locked Janina's room and put the keyaway in his desk. 

He did not sleep that night; his eyes were sunken and his facedeathly pale. Krenska heard him walking up and down his room allnight, but on the following day he was at work as usual. 

At dinner Krenska plucked up courage to speak to him aboutsomething. 

"Aha . . . I have still to settle with you!" he said. 

Krenska grew pale. She began to speak to him about Janina, about hersympathy for her, how she had tried to dissuade her from leaving, how earnestly she had begged her. 

"You're a fool!" he hurled at her. "She left because she wantedto. . . . Let her break her neck, if she wants to!"

Krenska began to commiserate his loneliness. 

"A cur!" he snarled, spitting beside him in scorn. "You, madame, canleave to-day. I will pay you what is due you and then get out ofthis house as fast as you can go, or I swear to God I'll have myworkmen throw you out! If I am to be alone I'll be entirelyalone . . . Without any guardians! A cur!"

Banging his glass against the table with such force that it flewinto splinters, he went out. 

CHAPTER II

The little garden theater was beginning to awaken. 

The curtain arose with a creaking sound and there appeared abarefooted and disheveled boy, clad only in a smock, who began tosweep the temple of art. The dust floated out in large clouds on thegarden, settling on the red cloth coverings of the chairs and on theleaves of a few consumptive chestnut trees. 

The waiters and servants of the restaurant began to put things toorder under the large veranda. One could hear the clatter of washedglasses, the beating of rugs, the moving of chairs and the subduedwhispers of the buffet-tender who arranged with a certain unctionher rows of bottles, platters containing sandwiches, and hugebouquets a la Makart, resembling dried brooms. The glaring rays ofthe sun peered in at the sides of the garden and a throng of blacksparrows swayed on the branches and perched on the chairs, clamoringfor crumbs. 

The clock over the buffet was slowly and solemnly striking the hourof ten, when a tall slim boy rushed in on the veranda; a torn capwas perched on the top of his touseled red hair, his freckled facewore a mischievous smile, and his nose was upturned. He ran straightto the buffet. 

"Be careful, Wicek, or you'll lose your shoes!" . . . Called thebarmaid. 

"I don't care; I'll get them remodeled!" he retorted jovially, gazing down at his shoes which clung miraculously to his feetdespite the fact that they were minus both soles and tops. 

"Please, miss, let me have a thimbleful of beer!" he cried bowingostentatiously. 

"Have you the price?" asked the barmaid, extending her palm. 

"This evening, I'll pay you. I give you my word, I'll pay you for itwithout fail, " he begged. 

The barmaid merely shrugged her shoulders. 

"O come on, let me have it, miss. . . . I'll recommend you to theShah of Persia. . . . Such a broad dame ought to have quite a pullwith him. . . . "

The waiters burst out laughing, while the barmaid banged her metaltray against the counter. 

"Wicek!" called someone from the entrance. 

"At your service, Mr. Manager. "

"Are they all here for the rehearsal?"

"Oh! They'll all be here without fail!" he answered, laughingroguishly. 

"Did you notify them? . . . Did you go to them with the circular?"

"Yes, they all signed it. "

"Did you take the play-bill to the director?"

"The director was still behind the scenes: he was lying in bed andgazing at his toes. "

"You should have given it to his wife. "

"But Mrs. Directress was in the midst of a tussle with her children;it was a little too noisy there. "

"You will go with this letter to Comely Street. . . . Do you knowwhere it is?"

"A few times over, 'She's quite a respectable dame, ' as a certainman in the front row said of Miss Nicolette the other day. "

"You will take this, wait for an answer, and come right back. "

"But Mr. Manager, will I get something for going?"

"Didn't I give you something on account only last night?"

"Oh . . . Only a copper! I spent it for beer and sardines, paid thebalance of my rent, gave my shoemaker a deposit for a new pair ofshoes, and now I'm dead broke!"

"You're a monkey! Here, take this . . . . "

"Blessed are the hands that dispense forty-cent pieces!" he criedwith a comical grimace, shuffled his shoes, and ran out. 

"Set the stage for the rehearsal!" called the manager, seatinghimself on the veranda. 

The members of the company assembled slowly. They greeted each otherin silence and scattered over the garden. 

"Dobek, " called the stage-manager to a tall man who was makingstraight for the buffet. "You guzzle from morn till night, and atthe rehearsals I cannot hear a word you say. . . . Your promptingisn't worth a bean!"

"Mr. Manager, I had a bad dream that ran something like this:Night . . . A well . . . I stumbled and fell into it . . . I wasfrozen stiff with fear . . . I called for help . . . No help wasnear . . . Splash! . . . And I was up to my neck in water. . . . Brr! . . . I still feel so cold that nothing will warm me. "

"Oh, hang your dreams! You drink from morn till night. "

"That's because I can't drink like others: from night till morn. Brr! I feel so beastly chilled!"

"I'll order some hot tea for you. "

"Thank you, I'm quite well Mr. Topolski, and use herbs only when I'msick. Must, the extracted juice, the constituent of rye, that's theonly stuff that is worthy of the complete man that I have the honorto consider myself, Mr. Manager. "

The director entered and Dobek went to the bar. 

"Did you assign all the roles of Nitouche?" the director asked. 

"Not quite, " answered Topolski, "those women . . . There are threecandidates for Nitouche. "

"Good morning, Mr. Director!" called one of the pillars of thetheater, Majkowska, a handsome actress dressed in a light gown, asilken wrap, and a white hat with a big ostrich feather. She was allrosy from a good night's sleep and from an invisible layer of rouge. She had large, dark-blue eyes, full and carmined lips, classicalfeatures, and a proud bearing. She played the principle roles. 

"Come here a minute, Mr. Director . . . There is a little matter Iwould like to speak to you about. "

"Always at your service, madame. Perhaps you need some money?"ventured the director with a troubled mien. 

"For the present . . . No. What will you have to drink, Mr. Director?"

"Ho! Ho! Somebody's blood is going to be shed!" he cried with acomical gesture. 

"I asked what will you drink, Mr. Director?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'd take a glass of cognac, but . . . "

"You're afraid of your wife? She does not appear in Nitouche, doesshe?"

"No, but . . . "

"Waiter! Two cognacs and sandwiches. . . . You will give the role ofNitouche to Nicolette, will you not, Mr. Director? Please do so, forI have a good reason for asking it. Remember, Mr. Cabinski, that Inever ask for a thing in vain, and do this for me . . . "

"That's already the fourth candidate for the part! . . . God! allthat I have to stand because of these women!"

"Which of them wants this part?"

"Well, Kaczkowska, my wife, Mimi, and now, Nicolette. . . . "

"Waiter! Two more cognacs, " she called, rapping on the tray with herglass. "You will give the part to Nicolette, Mr. Director, I knowfor a certainty that she will not accept it, for with her woodenvoice she could dance, but not sing. But you see, Mr. Director, thisis the very reason for giving it to her. "

"Well . . . Not to mention my own wife, Mimi and Kaczkowska willtear off my head if I do!"

"You'll not lose much by that! I'll explain the matter to them. Wewill have a splendid farce, for you see that gentleman friend ofhers will be present at to-day's rehearsal. Yesterday she boasted tohim that you had her in mind when you announced in the papers thatthe role of Nitouche will be played by the beautiful and dashingMme. X. X. "

Cabinski began to laugh quietly. 

"Only don't breathe a word about it. You'll see what will happen. Before him she will pretend to accept the part to show off. Haltwill immediately begin to rehearse her and will make a fool of herbefore everyone. You will then take away her part and give it towhomever you like. "

"You women are terrible in your malice. "

"Bah, therein lies our strength. "

They went out into the garden hall where several members of thecompany were already waiting for the rehearsal to begin. They satabout on chairs in little groups laughing, joking, telling tales, and complaining while the tuning of the orchestra furnished anaccompaniment to the buzz of voices. 

On the veranda an increasing number of guests was assembling and thehum of voices, the clatter of plates and the noisy shifting ofchairs grew ever louder. The smoke of cigarettes ascended in cloudsto the iron roof beams. 

Janina Orlowska entered. She sat down at one of the tables andinquired of the waiter:

"Can you tell me if the director of the theater has alreadyarrived?"

"There he is!"

"Which one of them. "

"What will you have, madame?"

"I beg your pardon, which of those gentlemen is Mr. Cabinski?"

"A seven! . . . Four whiskies!" someone called to the waiter from anearby table. 

"Just a minute, just a minute!"

"Beer!" came another voice. 

"Which of those gentlemen is the director?" patiently asked Janinafor the second time. 

"I will serve you in a minute, madam!" said the waiter bowing on allsides. 

To Janina it seemed that they were all staring at her and that thewaiters, as they passed with their hands full of beer-glasses andplates, cast such strange glances that she blushed in spite ofherself. 

Presently the waiter returned, bringing the coffee she had ordered. 

"Do you wish to see the director, madame?"

"Yes. "

"He is sitting there in the first row of seats. That short man in awhite vest . . . There! Do you see him?"

"I do. Thank you!"

"Shall I tell him you wish to speak to him?"

"No. Anyway he seems to be busy. "

"He is only chatting. "

"And who are those gentlemen with whom he is talking?"

"They are also members of our company--actors. "

She paid for the coffee, giving the waiter a ruble. He fumbled abouta long time, as though looking for change, but, seeing that she wasgazing in another direction, he bowed and thanked her. 

Having finished her coffee, Janina went into the hall. She passed bythe director and took a cursory look at him. All that she saw was alarge, pale, anaemic face, covered with grayish splotches. 

A few actors standing near him impressed her as handsome people. Shenoticed in their gestures, their smooth shaven faces, their easy, smiling airs something so superior to the men whom she had hithertoknown, that she listened to their conversation with rapt attention. 

The uncurtained stage, wrapt in darkness, drew her with its hiddenmystery. 

For the first time Janina saw the theater at close range and theactors off stage. The theater seemed to her like a Grecian templeand those people, whose profiles she had before her, and whoseeloquent voices sounded in her ears, seemed like true priests ofart. 

She was regarding everything about her with interest, when shesuddenly noticed that the waiter who had served her was whisperingsomething to the director and pointing to her with a slight gesture. 

There ran through Janina a tremor of fear, strange and depressing. She did not look up again, but felt that someone was approaching, that someone's glances were resting on her head and encircling herfigure. 

She was still at a loss how to begin and what to say, but felt thatshe must speak. 

She arose when she noticed Cabinski standing before her. 

"I am Mr. Cabinski, the director. "

She stood there unable to utter a word. 

"You deigned to ask for me, madame?" he queried with a courteousbow, signifying that he was ready to listen to her. 

"Yes . . . If you please . . . Mr. Director. I wished to askyou . . . Perhaps you could, " she stuttered, unable for the momentto find the right words to express what she wished to say. 

"Pray rest a little, madame, and calm yourself. Is it something veryimportant?" he whispered, bending toward her and at the same timewinking significantly to the actors who were looking on. 

"Oh, it is very important!" she answered, meeting his gaze. "I wishto ask you, Mr. Director, if you would accept me as a member of yourcompany. "

This last sentence she uttered quickly as though fearing that hercourage and voice might fail her ere it was spoken. 

"Ah! . . . Is that all? . . . You wish to be engaged, miss?" Hestiffened suddenly, studying her with a critical gaze. 

"I journeyed here especially for that purpose. You will not refuseme, Mr. Director, will you?"

"With whom did you appear before?"

"Pardon me, but I don't quite understand. "

"With what company? . . . Where?"

"I have never before appeared in the theater. I came here straightfrom the country for the express purpose of joining it. "

"You have never appeared before? . . . Then, I have no place foryou!" and he turned to go. 

Janina was seized with a desperate fear that her quest would fail, so with courage and a tone of strong entreaty in her voice she beganto speak hurriedly:

"Mr. Director! I journeyed here especially to join your company. Ilove the theater so ardently that I cannot live without it! . . . Donot refuse me! I do not know anyone here in Warsaw. I came to youbecause I had read so much about you in the papers. I feel that Icould play . . . I have memorized so many roles! . . . You will see, Mr. Director . . . If you only let me appear . . . You will see!"

Cabinski was silent. 

"Or perhaps you would prefer to have me call to-morrow? . . . I canwait a few days, if you wish, " she added, seeing that he did notanswer, but was observing her intently. 

Her voice trembled with entreaty; it modulated with ease and therewas so much originality and warmth in her tone that Cabinskilistened to her with pleasure. 

"Now I have no time, but after the rehearsal we can discuss thematter more thoroughly, " he said. 

She wanted impulsively to press his hand and thank him for thepromise, but her courage failed her, for she noticed that anincreasing number of people were curiously observing them. 

"Hey there, Cabinski!"

"Man alive!"

"Director! What's that . . . A rendezvous? In broad daylight, beforethe eyes of all, and scarcely three flights away from Pepa?"

Such were the bantering remarks hurled at him from every directionafter his parting with Janina. 

"Who is the charmer?"

"Director, it's rather careless to carry on such an affair rightthere in the limelight. "

"Ha! ha! now we've got you! . . . You posed as a flawless crystal, my muddy amber!" called one of the company, a fleshless individualwith habitually contorted lips that seemed to spew gall and malice. 

"Go to the devil, my dear! This is the first time I saw her, "retorted Cabinski. 

"A pretty woman! What does she want?"

"A novice of some kind . . . She's seeking an engagement. "

"Take her, Director. There are never too many pretty women on thestage. "

"The director has enough of those calves. "

"Don't fear, Wladek, they do not encumber the budget, for Cabinskihas a custom of failing to pay his actors, particularly the youngand pretty ladies. "

Thereat they all began laughing. 

"Treat us to a whiskey, Director, and I will tell you something, "Glas began anew. 

"Well, what is it?"

"That the manager will treat us to another. . . . "

"My funny sir, your belly grows at the expense of your wit . . . Youare beginning to prate like a fool, " remarked Wladek. 

"Only for fools . . . " Glas maliciously thrust back at Wladek andretired behind the scenes. 

"John!" came the voice of the director's wife from the veranda. 

Cabinski went out to meet her. 

She was a tall, stout woman with a face that still retained tracesof great beauty, now carefully preserved with paint; she had coarsefeatures, large eyes, narrow lips, and a very low forehead. Herdress was of an exaggerated youthful style and color, so that fromafar she gave the impression of being a young woman. 

She was very proud of her director-husband, of her dramatic talent, and of her children, of which she had four. In real life she wasfond of playing the role of a matron occupied only with her home andthe upbringing of her children, while in truth she was nothing but acomedienne, both in life and behind the scenes. On the stage sheimpersonated dramatic mothers and all the elder, unhappy women, never understanding her parts, but acting them, nevertheless, withfervor and pathos. 

She was a terror to her servants, to her own children, and to youngactresses whom she suspected of possessing talents. She had ashrewish temper which she masked before others with an exaggeratedcalm and feigned weakness. 

"Good morning, gentlemen!" . . . She called, leaning with a carelessattitude on her husband's arm. 

The company thronged around her, Majkowska greeting her with aneffusive kiss. 

"How charming Madame Directress looks to-day, " remarked Glas. 

"Your vision must have improved, for the directress always lookscharming!" interposed Wladek. 

"How is your health? . . . Yesterday's performance must have taxedyour strength. "

"You played superbly! . . . We all stood behind the scenes in raptattention. "

"The critics were all weeping. I saw Zarski wiping his eyes with hishandkerchief. "

"After sneezing . . . He has a bad catarrh, " called someone from theside. 

"The public was fascinated and swept off its feet in the thirdact . . . They arose in their chairs. "

"That's because they wanted to run away from such a treat, " came themocking voice again. 

"How many bouquets did you receive, Madame Directress?"

"Ask the director, he paid the bill. "

"Ah, Mr. Counselor, you are unbearable to-day!" cried the directressin a sweet voice, although almost pale with rage, for all the actorswere growing red in the face in their effort to keep from laughing. 

"It's intended as a kindness. . . . All the rest of them are sayingpretty things, let me say something sensible. "

"You are an impertinent man, Mr. Counselor! . . . How can you saysuch things? . . . "

"Moreover, what do I care about the theater! If I played well, I oweit to my husband; if I played badly it's the fault of the directorfor forcing me to appear continually in new roles! If I had my way, I would lock myself up with my children and confine myself todomestic affairs. . . . My God! art is such a big thing and we areall, compared with it, so small, so small that I tremble with fearbefore each new performance!" she declaimed. 

"Please let me have a word with you in private, " called Majkowska. 

"Do you see? . . . There is not even time to talk of art!" shesighed deeply and departed. 

"An old scarecrow!"

"An everlasting cow! . . . She thinks she is an artist!"

"Yesterday she bellowed terribly. "

"She flung herself around the stage as though she had St. Vitus'dance!"

"Hush! . . . According to her that is realism!"

On the veranda Majkowska was concluding her conversation with Mrs. Cabinska. 

"Will you give me your word of honor, Madame Directress?"

"Of course, I'll see to it right away. "

"It must be done. Nicolette has made herself impossible in thiscompany. Why, she even dares to criticize your own playing!Yesterday I saw her making disparaging remarks to that editor, "Majkowska whispered. 

"What! she dares to meddle with me?"

"I never indulge in gossip, nor do I want to sow hatred, but--"

"What did she say? . . . In the presence of the editor, did you say?Ah, the vile coquette!"

Majkowska smothered a smile, but hastily replied, "No, I'll not tellyou . . . I do not like to repeat gossip!"

"Well, I'll pay her back for it! . . . Wait, we'll teach her alesson!" hissed the directress. 

"Dobek, prompter! . . . Get into your box!"

"Ladies and gentlemen, the rehearsal commences!"

"To the stage! to the stage!" was the cry that went up all over thehall as the actors hurried behind the scenes. 

"Mr. Director!" called Majkowska, "you can give the role toNicolette . . . Your wife agrees to it. "

"Very well, my dears, very well . . . . "

He went out on the veranda where Nicolette was already seated with ayoung gentleman, very fastidiously dressed. 

"We request your presence at the rehearsal, Miss Nicolette. . . . "

"What are you rehearsing?" asked Nicolette. 

"Nitouche . . . Why, don't you know that you are to appear in thetitle role? . . . I have already advertised it in the papers. "

Kazckowska, who had at that moment entered and was looking at them, hastily covered her face with her parasol, so as not to burst outlaughing at the comical look of embarrassment on Nicolette's face. 

"I am too indisposed at present to take part in the rehearsal, " shesaid, scrutinizing Cabiniski and Kaczkowska. 

Evidently she suspected some ruse, but Cabinski, with the solemnestmien in the world, handed her the role. 

"Here is your part, madame. . . . We begin immediately, " he said, going away. 

"But Mr. Director! my dear Director, I pray you, go on with therehearsal without me! . . . I have such a headache that I doubt Icould sing, " she pleaded. 

"It can't be done. We begin immediately. "

"Oh, please do sing, Miss Nicolette! I'm crazy to hear you sing!"begged the squire. 

"Director!"

"What is it, my soprano?"

And the directress appeared, pointing to Janina who was standingbehind the scenes. 

"A novice, " answered Cabinski. 

"Are you going to engage her?"

"Yes, we need chorus girls. The sisters from Prague have left, forthey made nothing but scandals. "

"She looks rather homely, " opined Mrs. Cabinska. 

"But she has a very scenic face! . . . And also a very nice, thoughstrange voice. "

Janina did not lose a word of this conversation, carried on in anundertone; she had also heard the chorus of praise that went up onthe directress's appearance, and later, the chorus of derision. Shegazed with a bewildered look on that whole company. 

"Clear the stage! clear the stage!"

Those standing on the stage hastily moved back behind the scenes, for at the moment the entire chorus rushed out in a gallop: a throngof women, chiefly young women, but with painted faces, faded andblighted by their feverish life. There were blondes and brunettes, small and tall, thin and stout a motley gathering from all spheresof life. There were among them the faces of madonnas with defiantglances, and the smooth, round faces, expressionless andunintelligent, of peasant girls. And all were boredly cynical, or, at least, appeared so. 

They began to sing. 

"Halt! Start over again!" roared the director of the orchestra, anindividual with a big red face and huge mutton-chop whiskers. 

The chorus retired and came back again with heavy step, carrying ona sort of collective can-canade, but every minute there was heardthe sharp bang of the conductor's baton against his desk and thehoarse yell--"Halt! Start over again!" And swinging his baton hewould mutter under his nose: "You cattle!"

The chorus rehearsal dragged on interminably. The actors, scatteredabout in the seats, yawned wearily and those who took part in theevening's performance paced up and down behind the scenes, indifferently waiting for their turn to rehearse. 

In the men's dressing-room Wicek was shining the shoes of thestage-manager and giving him a hasty account of his mission toComely Street. 

"Did you deliver the letter? . . . Have you an answer?"

"I should smile!" and he handed Topolski a long pink envelope. 

"Wicek! . . . If you squeal a word of this to anyone, you clown, youknow what awaits you!"

"That's stale news! . . . The lady said just that, too. Only sheadded a ruble to her warning. "

"Maurice!" called Majkowska sharply, appearing at the door of thedressing-room. 

"Wait a minute. . . . I can't go with only one shoe shined, can I!"

"Why didn't you have the maid shine them?"

"The maid is always at your service and I can't get a single thingfrom her. "

"Well, go and hire another. "

"All right, but it will be for myself alone. "

"Nicolette, to the stage!"

"Call her!" cried Cabinski from the stage to those sitting around inthe chairs. 

"Come, Maurice, " whispered Majkowska. "It'll be worth seeing. "

"Nicolette, to the stage!" cried those in the chairs. 

"In a moment! Here I am . . . " and Nicolette, with a sandwich in hermouth and a box of candy under her arm, rushed for the stageentrance with such violence that the floor creaked under her steps. 

"What the devil do you mean by appearing so late! This is arehearsal . . . We are all waiting, " angrily muttered the conductorof the orchestra. . 

"I am not the only one you are waiting for, " she retorted. 

"Precisely, we are waiting only for you, madame, and you know wehave not come here to argue. . . . On with the rehearsal!"

"But I have not yet learned a single line. Let Kaczkowska sing . . . That is a part for her!"

"The part was given to you, wasn't it? . . . Well, then there's nouse arguing! Let us begin. "

"Oh, director! Can't we postpone it till this afternoon? Just now, it . . . "

"Begin!"

"Try it, Miss Nicolette . . . That part is well adapted to yourvoice. . . . I myself asked the director to give it to you, "encouraged Mrs. Cabinska with a friendly smile. 

Nicolette listened, scanning the faces of the whole company, butthey were all immobile. Only the young gentleman smiled amorously ather from the chairs. 

The conductor raised his baton, the orchestra began to play, and theprompter gave her the first words of her part. 

Nicolette, who was noted for never being able to learn her role, nowtripped up in the very first line and sang it as falsely aspossible. 

They began over again; it went a little better, but "Halt, " as theycalled the conductor, intentionally skipped a measure, causing herto make an awful mess of it. 

A chorus of laughter arose on the stage. 

"A musical cow!"

"To the ballet with such a voice and such an ear!"

Nicolette, on the verge of tears, approached Cabinski. 

"I told you that I could not sing just now. . . . I had not eventime to glance at my part. "

"Aha, so you cannot, madame? . . . Please hand me the role! . . . Kaczkowska will sing it. "

"I can sing, but just now I am unable to . . . I don't want toflunk!"

"To turn the heads of gentlemen, to make intrigues, to slanderothers before the press reporters, to go gallivanting all abouttown . . . For that you have time!" hissed Mrs. Cabinska. 

"Oh, go and mind your children . . . But don't you dare to meddlewith my affairs. "

"Director! She insults me, that . . . "

"Hand me the part, " ordered Cabinski. "You can sing in the chorus, madame, since you are unable to sing a role. "

"Oh no! . . . Just for that I am going to sing it! . . . I don'tcare a snap for these vile intrigues!"

"Who are you saying that to?" cried Cabinska, jumping up from herchair. "Well, to you, if you like. "

"You are dismissed from the company!" interposed Cabinski. 

"Oh, go to the devil, all of you!" shouted Nicolette throwing therole into Cabinski's face. "It's known long ago that in your companythere is no place for a respectable woman!"

"Get out of here, you adventuress!"

Cabinska sprang at her, but halfway across she stopped short andburst into tears. 

"On the right there is a sofa . . . It will be more comfortable foryou to faint on, Madame Directress!" called someone from the chairs. 

The company smiled with set faces. 

"Pepa! . . . My wife! . . . Calm yourself. . . . For God's sakecan't we ever do any thing without these continual rumpuses!"

"Am I the cause of it?"

"I'm not blaming you . . . But you could at least calm yourself . . . There's no reason for you acting this way!"

"So that is the kind of husband and father you are! . . . That isthe kind of director!" she shouted in fury. 

"Hold out only one hour, and you'll go straight to heaven, youmartyr!" someone called to Cabinski. 

"Sir, " queried a spectator, holding up one of the actors by thebutton of his coat. "Sir, are they playing something new?"

"First of all, that is a button from my coat which you have pulledoff!" cried the actor, "and that, my dear sir, is the first act of amoving farce entitled Behind the Scenes; it is given each day withgreat success. "

The stage became deserted. The orchestra was tuning its instruments;"Halt" went for a drink of beer, and the company scattered about thegarden. Cabinski, holding his head with both hands, paced up anddown the stage like a madman, complaining half in anger, half incommiseration, for his wife was still quietly continuing her spasms. 

"Oh what people! What people! What scandals!"

Janina, startled by the brutality of the spectacle she had justwitnessed, retreated behind the farthermost scene. She felt that itwas now impossible to speak with the director. 

"So these are artists! . . . This is the theater!" she was thinking. 

The rehearsal, after a short intermission, began anew withKaczkowska as the titular heroine. 

Majkowska was in a splendid humor, being so successfully rid of herrival. 

The director, after his wife's departure, rubbed his hands in gleeand motioned to Topolski. They went out to the buffet for a drink. Without a doubt he must have made something on his break withNicolette. 

Stanislawski, the oldest member of the company, walked up and downthe dressing-room, spitting with disgust and muttering to Mirowska, who was sitting on a chair with her feet curled up under her. 

"Scandals . . . Nothing but scandals! . . . How can we expect tohave any success! . . . "

Mirowska nodded her assent, smiling faintly and keeping steadily onwith the crocheting of a handkerchief. 

After the rehearsal Janina boldly approached Cabinski. 

"Mr. Director--" she began. 

"Ah, it is you, miss? . . . I will accept you. Come to-morrow beforethe performance, and we will talk it over. I have not the time now. "

"Thank you ever so much, sir!" she answered overjoyed. 

"Have you any kind of a voice?"

"A voice?"

"Do you sing?"

"At home I used to sing a little . . . But I do not think I have astage voice . . . However, I . . . "

"Only come a little earlier and we shall try you out. . . . I shallspeak to the musical director. "

CHAPTER III

The Lazienki Park in Warsaw was athrob with the breath of spring. The roses bloomed and the jasmines diffused their heavy odor throughthe park. It was so quiet and lovely there, that Janina sat for afew hours near the lake, forgetting everything. 

The swans with spreading wings, like white cloudlets, floated overthe azure bosom of the water; the marble statues glowed withimmaculate whiteness; the fresh and luxuriant foliage was like avast sea of emerald steeped in golden sunlight; the red blossoms ofthe chestnut trees floated down on the ground, the waters and thelawns, and flickered like rosy sparks among the shadows of thetrees. 

The noisy hum of the city reached here in a subdued echo and lostitself among the bushes. 

Janina had come here straight from the theater. What she had seendisquieted her; she felt within herself a dull pain of disillusionmentand hesitation. 

She did not wish to remember anything, but only kept repeating toherself, "I'm in the theater! . . . I'm in the theater!"

There passed before her mind the figures of her future companions. Instinctively she felt that in those faces there was nothingfriendly, only, envy and hypocrisy. 

Presently she proceeded to her hotel at which she had stopped on theadvice of her fellow-travelers, on the train to Warsaw. It was acheap affair on the outskirts of the city and frequented chiefly bypetty farm officials and the actors of small provincial theaters. 

She was given a small room on the third floor, with a window lookingout upon the red roofs of the old city, extending in crooked andirregular lines. It was such an ugly view that, on returning fromLazienki, with her eyes and soul still full of the green of theverdure and the golden sunlight, she immediately pulled down theshades and began to unpack her trunk. 

She had not yet had time to think of her father. The city, thehubbub and bustle which engulfed her immediately upon her arrival atthe station, the weariness caused by the journey and by the lastmoments at Bukowiec, and afterwards those feverish hours at thetheater, the rehearsal, the park, the waiting for evening and herown coming rehearsal all this had so completely absorbed her thatshe forgot almost entirely about home. 

She dressed carefully, for she wished to appear at her best. 

When she arrived at the garden-theater the lights were alreadyturned on and the public was beginning to assemble. She went boldlybehind the scenes. The stage hands were arranging the decorations;of the company, no one was as yet present. 

In the dressing-rooms the gaslights flared brightly. The costumerwas preparing gaudy costumes, and the make-up man sat whistling andcombing a wig with long, bright tresses. 

In the ladies' dressing-room an old woman was standing under thegaslight, sewing something. 

Janina explored all the corners, examining everything, emboldened bythe fact that no one paid the slightest attention to her. The wallsbehind the huge canvas decorations were dirty, with their plasterbroken off, and covered with sticky dampness. The floors, themoldings, the shabby furniture and decorations, that seemed to herlike beggarly rags, were thick with dust and filth. The odor ofmastic, cosmetics, and burnt hair, floating over the stage, nauseated her. 

She viewed the canvas scenes of what were supposed to be magnificentcastles, the chambers of the kings of operetta, gorgeous landscapesand beheld at close view a cheap smear of colors which could satisfyonly the grossest of senses and then only from a distance. In thestoreroom she saw cardboard crowns; the satin robes were poorimitations, the velvets were cheap taffeta, the ermines were paintedcambric, the gold was gilded paper, the armor was of cardboard, theswords and daggers of wood. 

She gazed at that future kingdom of hers as though wishing toconvince herself of its worthiness. And, though it was sham, tinsel, lies, and comedy she tried to see above it all something infinitelyhigher--art. 

The stage was not yet set, and was only dimly lighted. Janinacrossed it a few times with the stately stride of a heroine, thenagain, with the light, graceful airiness of an ingenue, or with thequick feverish step of a woman who carries with her death anddestruction; and with each new impersonation, her face assumed theappropriate expression, her eyes glowed with the flame of theEumenides, with storm, desire, conflict, or, kindling with the moodof love, longing, anxiety they shone like stars on a spring night. 

She passed through these various transformations unconsciously, impelled by the memory of the plays and roles she had read, and sogreat was her abstraction, that she forgot about everything and paidno attention to the stagehands, who were moving about her. 

"My Al used to act the same way . . . The same way!" said a quietvoice from behind the scenes near the ladies' dressing-room. 

Janina paused in confusion. She saw standing there a middle-agedwoman of medium height, with a withered face and stern demeanor. 

"You have joined our company, miss?" she inquired with a sharpenergetic voice, piercing Janina with her round, owl-like eyes. 

"Not quite. . . . I am about to have a trial with the musicaldirector. Ah, yes, Mr. Cabinski even said that it was to take placebefore the performance! . . . " she cried, recalling what he had toldher. 

"Aha! with that drunkard . . . "

Janina glanced at her, surprised. 

"Have you set your heart on being with us, miss?"

"In the theater? . . . Yes! . . . I journeyed here for that verypurpose. "

"From whence?" asked the elderly woman abruptly. 

"From home, " answered Janina, but more quietly and with a certainhesitation. 

"Ah . . . I see . . . You are entirely new to the profession! . . . Well, well! that is curious! . . . "

"Why? . . . Why should it be so strange for one who loves thetheater to try to join it? . . . "

"Oh, that's what all of them say! . . . While in truth, each of themruns away either from something . . . Or for something. . . . "

Janina was conscious of an accent of hidden malice in her voice. "Doyou know, madam, how soon the musical director will arrive?" sheasked. 

"I don't!" snapped back the elderly woman, and walked away. 

Janina moved back a little, for just then the workmen were spreadinga huge waxed canvas over the stage. She was gazing at thisabsent-mindedly, when the elderly woman reappeared and addressed herin a milder tone, "I will give you a piece of advice, miss. . . . Itis necessary for you to win over the musical director. "

"But how am I to do it?"

"Have you money?"

"I have, but--"

"If you will listen to me, I will advise you. "

"Certainly. "

"You must get him a little drunk, then the rehearsal will come offsplendidly. "

Janina glanced at her in amazement. 

"Ha! ha!" laughed the other quietly. "Ha! ha! she is a realmoon-calf!"

After a moment she whispered, "Let us go to the dressing-room. Iwill enlighten you a little . . . "

She pulled Janina after her, and afterwards, busying herself withpinning a dress on a mannikin, she remarked, "We must getacquainted. "

"Tell me, madam, how about that musical director?" asked Janina. 

"It's necessary to buy him some cognac. Yes!" she added aftera moment, "Cognac, beer, and sandwiches will, perhaps, besufficient. "

"How much would that cost?"

"I think that for three rubles you can give him a decent treat. Letme have the money and I will order everything for you. I had bettergo right away. "

Janina gave her the money. 

Sowinska left and in about a quarter of an hour returned, breathless. 

"Well, everything is settled! Come along, miss, the director iswaiting. "

Behind the restaurant hall there was a room with a piano. "Halt, "flushed and sleepy, was already waiting there. 

"Cabinski spoke to me about you, miss!" he began. "What can yousing? . . . Whew! how warm I feel! . . . Perhaps you will raise thewindow?" he said, turning to Sowinska. 

Janina felt disturbed by his hoarse voice and his inflamed, drunkenface, but she sat down to the piano, wondering what she shouldselect to sing. 

"Ah! you also play, miss? . . . " he queried in great surprise. 

"Yes, " she answered, and began playing the introduction to somesong, without seeing the signs that Sowinska was making to her. 

"Please sing something for me, " he said, "I want to hear only yourvoice. . . . Or perhaps you could sing some solo part?"

"Mr. Director . . . I feel that I have a calling for the drama, oreven for the comedy, but never for the opera. "

"But we are not talking about the opera . . . "

"About what, then?"

"About this . . . The operetta!" he cried, striking his knee. "Sing, Miss! . . . I have only a little time and I am burning up with thisheat. "

She began to sing a song of Tosti's. The director listened, but atthe same time gazed at Sowinska and pointed to his parched lips. 

When Janina had ended, he cried, "Very well . . . We will acceptyou . . . I must hurry out, for I'm roasting. "

"Perhaps you will have a drink of something with us, Mr. Director? . . . " she queried timidly, understanding the signs thatSowinska gave her. 

He pretended to excuse himself, but in the end remained. 

Sowinska ordered the waiter to bring half a bottle of cognac, threebeers and some sandwiches, and, having drained her own glass, shehastily left them, saying that she had forgotten something in thedressing-room. 

"Halt" shoved his chair nearer to Janina's. 

"Hm! . . . You have a voice, miss . . . A very nice voice . . . " hesaid and laid his big red paw upon her knee, while with the other hebegan to pour some brandy into his beer. 

She moved back a little, disgusted. 

"You can put on a bold front on the stage. . . . I will helpyou . . . " he added, draining his glass at one gulp. 

"If you will be so kind, Mr. Director . . . " Janina said, drawingaway from him. 

"I will see to it . . . I will take care of you!"

And suddenly he took her about the waist and drew her to him. 

Janina shoved him back with such force that he fell sprawling uponthe table, and then ran to the door, ready to cry out. 

"Whew! . . . Wait a minute . . . You're a fool! . . . Stay! . . . Iwanted to take care of you, help you, but since you're such ablooming fool, go and hang yourself! . . . "

He drank the rest of his cognac and left. 

On the veranda sat Cabinski with the stage-manager. 

"Has she any kind of a voice?" he inquired of "Halt, " for he hadseen Janina entering the room. "A soprano?"

"Ho, ho! something unheard of . . . Almost an alto!"

Janina sat for about an hour in that room, unable to control theindignation and rage that shook her. There were lucid moments whenshe would spring up as though ready to rush out and away from thosepeople, but immediately she would sink down again with a moan. 

"Where will I go?" she asked herself, and then added with a suddendetermination. "No, I will stay! . . . I will bear all, if it isnecessary . . . I must! . . . I must!"

Janina became set in her stubborn determination. She collectedwithin herself all her powers for impending battle with misfortune, with obstacles, with the whole evil and hostile world and for amoment, she saw herself on some dizzying height where was fame andthe intoxication of triumph. 

Presently Sowinska came in. 

"Thank you, for your advice . . . And for leaving me with apig! . . . " the girl exclaimed, half weeping. 

"I was in a hurry . . . He did not eat you, did he? . . . He's agood man. . . . "

"Then leave your daughter alone with that good man!" retorted Janinaharshly. "My daughter is not an actress, " answered Sowinska. 

"Oh! . . . It doesn't matter . . . It's only a lesson for me, " shewhispered, turning away. 

She met Cabinski and, approaching him, asked, "Will you accept me, Mr. Director?"

"You may consider yourself engaged, " he answered. "As for yoursalary we shall speak of that another day. "

"What am I to play? . . . I should like to take the part of Clara inThe Iron Master. "

Cabinski glanced at her sharply and covered his mouth with his handso as not to burst out laughing. 

"Just a moment . . . Just a moment . . . You must first acquaintyourself with the stage. In the meanwhile, you will appear with thechorus. Halt told me that you know how to play the piano and readnotes. To-morrow I will give you some scores of the operettas weplay and you can learn the chorus parts. "

Janina went to the dressing-room and had scarcely opened the door, when someone pushed her back, slammed the door in her face andcalled out angrily: "Upstairs with you! that is where the chorusgirls belong!"

She set her teeth and went upstairs. 

The dressing-room of the chorus was a long, narrow and lowapartment. Rows of unshaded gaslights burned above long bare, boardtables extending along the walls on three sides of the room. Thewalls were covered with unbeveled and unpainted boards which werescribbled all over with names, dates jokes and caricatures, done incharcoal or rouge paint. On the bare wall hung a whole string ofdresses and costumes. 

About twenty women sat undressed before mirrors of various shapes, and before each one there burned candles. 

Janina spying an unoccupied chair, near the door, sat down and beganto look about her. 

"I beg your pardon, but that is my seat!" called a stout brunette. 

Janina stood aside. 

"Did you come to see someone? . . . " asked the same chorus-girl, rubbing her face with vaseline before applying powder. 

"No. I came to the dressing-room. I am one of the company, " answeredJanina rather loudly. 

"Oh, you are?"

A few heads raised themselves above the tables and a few pairs ofeyes were centered upon Janina. 

Janina told the brunette her name. 

"Girls! . . . This new one calls herself Orlowska. Get acquaintedwith her!" called the brunette. 

A few of those sitting nearest her stretched out their hands ingreeting and then proceeded with their make-up. 

"Louise, loan me some powder. "

"Go buy it!"

"Say Sowinska!" called down one of the girls through the open doorto the lower dressing-room, "I met that same guy . . . Youknow! . . . I was walking along Nowy Swiat. "

"Tell it to the marines! Who would fall for such a scarecrow asyou!" put in another. 

"I've bought a new suit . . . Look!" cried a small, very prettyblonde. 

"You mean he bought it for you!"

"Goodness, no! . . . I bought it from my own savings. "

"Persian lamb! . . . Oh! . . . Do you think we'll believe you? . . . Come now, you bought it out of that fellow's savings, didn't you?"

"It's pure lily! . . . The waist is low-cut with a yoke ofcream-colored embroidery, the skirt is plain with a shirred hem, thehat is trimmed with violets, " another girl was recounting, as sheslipped her ballet skirts over her head. 

"Listen there, you lily-colored kid . . . Give me back that rublethat you owe me . . . . "

"After the play when I get it I'll give it back to you, honest!"

"Ha! ha! Cabinski will give it to you, like fun . . . "

"I tell you, my dear, I'm getting desperate. . . . He coughed alittle . . . But I thought nothing of it . . . Until yesterday, whenI looked down his little throat I saw . . . White spots . . . I ranfor the doctor . . . He examined him and said: diphtheria! I sat byhim all night, rubbed his throat every hour . . . He couldn't say aword, only showed me with his little finger how it hurt . . . Andthe tears streamed down his face so pitifully that I thought I'd dieof grief . . . I left the janitress with him, for I must make somemoney . . . I left my cloak to cover him with . . . But all, allthat is not enough! . . . " a slim and pretty actress with a faceworn by suffering and poverty was telling her neighbor in a subduedvoice, while she curled her hair, carmined her pale lips, and withthe pencil gave a defiant touch to her eyes dimmed by tears andsleepiness. 

"Helen! your mother asked about you to-day . . . "

"Surely, not about me . . . My mother died long ago. "

"Don't tell me that! Majkowska knows you and your mother well andsaw you together on Marshalkowska Street the other day. "

"Majkowska ought to buy herself a pair of glasses, if she's so blindas that . . . I was going downtown with the housekeeper. "

The other girls began to laugh at her. The one who had denied hermother blew out her candle and left in irritation. 

"She's ashamed of her own mother. That's true, but such amother! . . . "

"A plain peasant woman. She compromises her before everybody. . . . At least, she could refrain from making a show before other people!"

"How so? Can a girl be ashamed of her mother? . . . " cried Janina, who had been sitting in silence, until those last words stirred herto indignation. 

"You are a newcomer, so you don't know anything, " several answeredher at once. 

"May I come in? . . . " called a masculine voice from without. 

"You can't! you can't!" chorused the girls energetically. 

"Zielinska! your editor has come. "

A tall, stout chorus girl, rustling her skirts, passed out of theroom. 

"Shepska! take a look out after them. "

Shepska went out, but came back immediately. 

"They've gone downstairs. "

The stage bell rang violently. 

"To the stage!" called the stage-director at the door. "We beginimmediately!"

There arose an indescribable hubbub. All the girls began to talk andshout at the same time; they ran about, tore away hairpins andcurling irons from one another, powdered themselves, quarreled overtrifles, blew out candles, hastily closed their dressing-cases andrushed down the stairs in crowds, for the second bell had alreadysounded. 

Janina descended last of all and stood behind the scenes. Theperformance began. They were playing some kind of half fairy-likeoperetta. Janina could hardly recognize those people or that theatereverything had undergone such a magical transformation and taken ona new beauty under the influence of powder, paint, and light! . . . 

The music, with the quiet caressing tones of the flute, floatedthrough the silence and stole into Janina's soul, lulling itsweetly . . . And later, a dance of some kind, soft, voluptuous, andintoxicating, enveloped her with its charm, lured and rocked her onthe waves of rhythm and held her in an ecstatic lethargy. 

She felt herself drawn ever farther into a confused whirl of lights, tones and colors. Her impulsive and sensuous nature, strugglinghitherto with the drab commonplace of everyday events and people, was fascinated. It was almost as she had visioned it in her soul;full of lights, music, thrilling accents, ecstatic swoons, strongcolors, and stormy and overpowering emotions, breaking with theforce of thunderbolts. 

The suffocating odor of powder dust floated about her like a cloud, while from the crowded hall there flowed a stream of hot breaths anddesiring glances that broke against the stage like a magnetic wave, drowning in forgetfulness all that was not song, music, andpleasure. 

When the act ended and a storm of applause broke loose, she was onthe verge of fainting. She bent her head and eagerly drank in thosemurmurs resembling lightning flashes and, like them blinding thesoul. She breathed in those cries of the delighted public with herfull breath and with all the might of her soul that craved for fame. She closed her eyes, so that that impression, that picture mightlast longer. 

The enchanting vision had dissolved. Over the stage moved men intheir shirt sleeves and without vests; they were changing thescenes, arranging the furniture, fastening the props. She saw thegrimy necks, the dirty and ugly faces, the coarse and hardened handsand the heavy forms. 

She went out on the stage and through a slit in the curtain gazedout on the dim hall packed full of people. She saw hundreds of youngfaces, women's faces, smiling and still stirred by the music, whiletheir owners fanned themselves; the men in their black eveningclothes formed dark spots scattered at regular intervals, upon thelight background of feminine toilettes. 

Janina felt a strange disappointment as she realized that the facesof the public were very much like those of Grzesikiewicz, herfather, her home acquaintances, the principal of her boardingschool, the professors at the academy and the telegrapher atBukowiec. For the moment, it seemed to her that that was a sheerimpossibility. How so? . . . She, of course, knew what to thinkabout those others, whom long ago she had classified as fools, light-heads, drunkards, gossipers, silly geese and house-hens; smalland shallow souls, a band of common eaters-of-bread, sunk in theshallow morass of material existence. And these people that filledthe theater and doled out applause, and whom she had once thought ofas demi-gods were they the same as those others? Janina askedherself, that, wonderingly. 

"Madame!" said a voice beside her. 

She tore her face away from the curtain. At her side stood ahandsome, elegantly dressed young man who was holding his hand tohis hat, smiling in a conventional manner. 

"Just let me look a moment . . . " he said. 

Janina moved away a bit. 

He glanced through the slit in the curtain and relinquished herplace to her. 

"Pardon me, pardon me for disturbing you . . . " he said. 

"Oh, I've looked all I wanted to, sir . . . " she answered. 

"Not a very interesting sight, is it? . . . " he queried. "The mostauthentic Philistia; trade-mongers and shoemakers. . . . Perhaps youthink, madame, that they come to hear, and admire the play? Oh, no! . . . They come here to display their new clothes, have supper, and kill time. . . . "

"Well then, who does come for the play itself?" she asked. 

"In this place, no one. . . . At the Grand Theater and at theVarieties . . . There, perhaps, you may yet find a group, a verysmall group who love art and who come for the sake of art alone. Ihave often touched upon that matter in the papers. "

"Mr. Editor, let me have a cigarette!" called an actor from behindthe scenes. 

"At your service. " He handed the actor a silver cigarette-case. 

Janina, moving away, gazed with admiration at the writer, delightedwith the opportunity of observing such a man at close range. 

How many times in the country while listening to the everlastingconversations about farming, politics, rainy and clear weather, shehad dreamed of this other world, of people who would discourse toher of ideals, art, humanity, progress and poetry, and whoimpersonated in themselves all those ideals. 

"You must not be very long in this company for I have not had thepleasure of seeing you before . . . "

"I was engaged only to-day. "

"Have you appeared elsewhere before?"

"No, never on the real stage. . . . I took part only in amateurtheatricals. "

"That is the way nearly all dramatic talent develops. I know . . . Ihappen to know . . . Modrzejewska herself often mentioned that factto me, " he remarked, with a condescending smile. 

"Mr. Editor . . . Do your duty!" called Kaczkowska, extending herhands. 

The editor buttoned her gloves, kissed each of her hands a fewtimes, received a slap on the shoulder in reward and retreated tothe curtain where Janina was standing. 

"So this is your first appearance in the theater? . . . " he asked. "No doubt it's a case of the family opposing . . . Inflexibledetermination on your part . . . The isolation and dullness of thecountryside . . . Your first appearance as an amateur . . . Stagefright . . . Success . . . The recognition of the divine sparkwithin yourself . . . Your dreams of the real stage . . . Tears . . . Sleepless nights . . . A struggle with an adverseenvironment . . . Finally, consent . . . Or perhaps a secret escapein the night . . . Fear . . . Anxiety . . . Going the rounds of thedirectors . . . Seeking an engagement . . . Ecstasy . . . Art . . . Godliness!" he spoke rapidly, telegraphically. 

"You have almost guessed it, Mr. Editor . . . It was the same withme, " said Janina. 

"You see, mademoiselle, I knew so from the first. It's intuitionthat's all! I'll take care of you, upon my word! . . . I'll insert alittle item about you in our next issue. Later, give a few detailsunder a sensational headline, next, a longer article about the newstar on the horizon of dramatic art, " he sped on. . . . "You willsweep them off their feet . . . The directors will tear you awayfrom each other, and in about a year or two . . . You will be in theGrand Theater at Warsaw! . . . "

"But, Mr. Editor, no one knows me; no one, as yet, knows whether Ihave talent . . . "

"You have talent, my word! My intuition tells me that. . . . Do notbelieve the testimony of the senses, mademoiselle, hold yourselfaloof from all reasoning, throw to the dogs all calculations, but donot fail to believe intuition! . . . "

"Come here, editor . . . Hurry!" called someone to him. 

"Au revoir! au revoir!" he said, throwing a kiss to Janina andtouching the brim of his hat as he disappeared. 

Janina arose from her seat, but that same intuition which he hadadvised her to heed, told her not to take his words seriously. Heseemed to her a light-headed individual given to hasty judgments. That promise of notices and articles in the papers and hisextravagant praises of her talent seemed to her merely insinceretwaddle. Even his face, gestures, and manner of speaking remindedher of a certain notorious braggart living in the vicinity ofBukowiec. 

The second act of the play commenced. 

Janina looked on, but it did not carry her away as the first haddone. 

"How do you like our theater? . . . " asked the brunette chorus girl, whom she had met in the dressing-room. 

"Very well!" answered Janina. 

"Bah! the theater is like a plague; when it infects anyone, youmight as well say amen! . . . " whispered the brunette, her voicehard. 

Behind the scenes, in the almost dark passages between thedecorations there was a great number of people. The actors stood inthe passages and certain pairs were crouched in the darkness;whispers and discreet laughs sounded on all sides. 

The stage-director, an old, bald man without a collar and dressedonly in a vest, with a scenario in one hand and a bell in the other, ran up and down at the back. 

"To the stage! You enter immediately, madame! . . . Enter!" he criedall perspired and flushed, and ran on again, gathered from thedressing-rooms those who were needed on the stage, and at theappropriate moment whispered: "Enter!"

Janina saw how the actors suddenly interrupted their conversations, left each other in the midst of some sentence, stood down half-emptyglasses, and rushed for the entrances, waiting for their turn, immovable and silent or nervously whispering the words of theirroles, and entering into their characters; she saw the quivering oflips and eyelids, the trembling of legs, the sudden paleness beneaththe layer of paint, and the feverish glances of stage fright . . . 

"Enter!" sounded a voice like the crack of a whip. 

Almost everyone started violently, hastily assumed the requiredfacial expression, crossed himself a few times and went on. 

Each time the stage door opened a thrill went through Janina at thatwave of strange fire, that streamed toward her from the public. 

She began again to lose herself in the play. That mysterious gloom, those garish hues and forms, emerging from the shadows and suddenlyflooded with light, the strains of invisible music, the echo ofsinging, the sound of subdued footfalls and strange whispers in thedarkness, the feverish rapture of the public, the glowing eyes, theexcitement, the thundering applause, like a far-away storm, streamsof dazzling light alternating with darkness, the throng of people, the pathetic ring of words, tragic cries, heart-rending sobs, moans, weeping, a whole melodrama, pompously and noisily acted all thisfilled Janina with a fervor different from the one she had felt inthe first act, the fervor of energy and action. She went through theplaying with all the actors, suffered together with those paperheroes and heroines, feared with them and loved with them; she felttheir nervousness before entering the stage, trembled with emotionin the pathetic moments of the play, while certain words and criessent so strange and painful a tremor through her that they broughtthe tears to her eyes and a faint cry to her lips. 

An increasing number of people from the audience began to comebehind the scenes. Boxes of candy, bouquets, and single flowerscirculated freely from hand to hand. Beer, whisky, and cognac weredrunk and cakes were snatched from a huge tray. Gusts of laughterbroke out here and there, jokes exploded like fireworks in the air. Some of the chorus girls had dressed and were going out into thegarden. 

Janina saw actors in their negligee only, parading up and downbefore their dressing-rooms; women, in white petticoats with nakedshoulders and with half of their stage make-up removed, werestrolling about the stage and peeping through the curtain at thepublic. On noticing some stranger, they would retreat utteringlittle shrieks, smiling coquettishly, and darting significantglances. 

Waiters from the restaurant, maids, and stage hands went flyingabout like hunting hounds. 

"Sowinska!"

"Tailor!"

"Costumer!"

"A pair of pants and a cape!"

"A cane for the stage and a letter!"

"Wicek! run to the director and tell him that it is time for him todress for the last act!"

"Set the stage!"

"Wicek! send me some rouge, beer, and sandwiches! . . . " called oneactress across the stage. 

In the dressing-rooms reigned chaos, forced and hurried changing ofdress, feverish make-up with cosmetics that were almost melting fromthe heat, and quarrels . . . . 

"If you pass before me again on the stage, sir, I'll kick yourshins, as I live!"

"Go kick your dog! My part calls for that . . . Here, read it!"

"You intentionally hide me from view!"

"What did I tell you!" said another. "I merely popped out andimmediately there arose a murmur of applause. "

"It was only the wind and that fellow thinks it was applause, "answered another voice. 

"There was a murmur of disgust, because you bungled your part. "

"How the deuce can one keep from bungling when Dobek prompts like aconsumptive nag?"

"Speak yourself, and I will then stop . . . We'll see what a foolyou'll make of yourself! . . . I put word after word into his ear aswith a shovel and . . . Nothing doing! . . . I shout out so loudlythat Halt kicks at the stage for silence . . . But that fellow stillstands there like a dummy!" retorted Dobek. 

"I always know my part; you trip me up intentionally. "

"Tailor! a belt, a sword and a hat . . . Hurry!"

"Mary! if you tell me to go, there will go with me night andsuffering, loneliness and tears . . . Mary! do you not hear me?I . . . It is the voice of the heart that loves you . . . Thevoice . . . " repeated Wladek, pacing up and down the dressing-roomwith his role and gesticulating wildly, deaf to all that was goingon about him. 

"Hey there, Wladek . . . Put on the soft pedal. . . . You'll haveenough opportunity to roar and groan on the stage until our ears aresore, " called someone. 

"Gentlemen! haven't you perhaps seen Peter?" inquired an actress, poking her head through the door. 

"Gentlemen, see if Peter isn't sitting somewhere under the table, "mocked someone. 

"Milady . . . Peter went upstairs with a very pretty little dame. "

"Murder him, madame! he's unfaithful!"

Such were the remarks, punctuated with laughter, that greeted her. 

The actress vanished and from the other side of the stage one couldhear her asking everyone, "Have you seen Peter?"

"She will go crazy some day from jealousy over him! . . . " remarkedsomeone. 

"A respectable woman!"

"But that doesn't prevent her from being a fool. "

"How are you, Editor!"

"Oh, it's the editor, is it! . . . That means we'll have beer andcigarettes. "

"And here comes the counselor! . . . "

"Good evening Counselor!"

"What news at the box office?"

"Fine! . . . The theater is sold out, for I saw Gold smoking acigar. "

"Praised be the gods! The advances on our salaries will be larger. "

"How do you do, Bolek! . . . Don't come in here, or you will meltlike butter . . . We have a little Africa here to-day . . . "

"We'll cool ourselves immediately, for I've ordered the beer . . . "

"To the stage, everybody! . . . The people to the stage! The prieststo the stage! The soldiers to the stage!" shouted the stage-director, rushing from one dressing-room to the other. 

After a moment, all had vanished. 

It was well after ten o'clock, the next morning at her hotel whenJanina awoke, worn-out completely; for the moment, she could notunderstand, where she was. 

She no longer felt any of yesterday's feverish raptures, but rathera quiet gladness that she was already in the theater. At moments, the bright tone of her mood was overcast by some shadow, somepresentiment, or unconscious memory from the past; it was theglimmering of something unpleasant which, although it quicklyvanished, left traces of uneasiness. 

She hastily drank her tea and was about to go out, when someonegently rapped at the door. 

"Come in!" she called. 

There entered an old Jewish woman, neatly dressed, with a big boxunder her arm. 

"Good morning, miss!"

"Good morning, " she answered, surprised by the visit. 

"Perhaps you will buy something, miss? . . . I have good, cheapwares. Perhaps you need some jewelry? Perhaps some gloves orhairpins, they are pure silver. I have all kinds of articles atdifferent prices and all are genuine Parisian goods! . . . " shechattered on rapidly, spreading the contents of her box on thetable, while her little black eyes with heavy red lids, like theeyes of a hawk, wandered about the room and took stock ofeverything. 

Janina kept silent. 

"It won't harm you to look at them . . . " insisted the Jewess. "Ihave cheap things and pretty things! Perhaps you will have someribbons, or laces, or stockings? . . . Or will you have some ofthese silk handkerchiefs? . . . "

Janina began to examine the collection spread out on the table andselected a few yards of some ribbon. 

"Perhaps your mother will also buy something? . . . " ventured theJewess, looking at her intently. 

"I am alone. "

"Alone?" she drawled, with an inquisitive contraction of hereyebrows. 

"Yes, but I don't intend to live here, " explained Janina, as thoughjustifying herself. 

"Perhaps I might recommend a boarding house to you? . . . I know acertain widow who . . . "

"Very well, " interrupted the girl, "you might find me a room withsome private family on Nowy Swiat, near the theater . . . "

"You belong to the theater, miss? . . . Ah! . . . "

"Yes. "

"Perhaps you need something else? . . . I have beautiful things forthe theater. "

"No, I have all I want. "

"I will sell them cheap . . . As I'm an honest woman . . . Cheap!They are just what you want for the theater. "

"I don't need anything. "

"May I die, if they are not dirt cheap! . . . These are such hardtimes. "

She replaced all her wares in the box and drew closer to Janina. 

"Perhaps you will give me a chance to make something? . . . "

"I won't buy anything else, for I don't need it!" answered Jane, growing impatient. 

"I don't mean that!"

The old woman began to whisper hurriedly "I know nice youngmen . . . Do you understand, miss? . . . Rich young men! . . . Thatis not my business, but they asked me to . . . They'll come to seeyou themselves . . . Nice, rich, young men. "

"What? . . . What?" cried Janina. 

"Why are you so excited, Miss?"

"Get out of here, or I'll call the servant!" shouted Janina. 

"Goodness, what a temper! . . . I knew at least ten ladies, who werethe same as you in the beginning and afterwards they were ready tokiss my hands, if only I would introduce them to some gentleman . . . "

She did not finish, for Janina opened the door, and pushed her out. 

At the theater she met Sowinska on the veranda, and immediately, inthe politest manner, asked her if she did not know of some room shecould rent with a private family. 

"Ah, that just fits in fine! . . . If you wish, there is a room inour house that you may have. We can let you have it cheap, togetherwith your meals. It is a very nice room on the lower floor, withwindows facing the south, and a separate entrance from the hall. "

They agreed on the price and Janina said she would pay her a month'srent in advance. 

"So that all's settled!" said Sowinska. "You will find our housevery quiet, for my daughter has no children. . . . Come, I will showyou the room. "

"Not until after the rehearsal; and if you haven't the time to wait, leave me the address and I will find the place myself. "

Sowinska gave her the address and went away. 

Janina was handed her notes and took part in the rehearsal, singingfrom them. 

Kaczkowska wanted Halt to accompany her at the piano. 

"Give me a rest, madame! I have no time!" he answered. 

"If you wish, madame, I will accompany you, providing it is fromnotes . . . " proposed Janina. 

Kaczkowska drew her eagerly away to the room with the piano and kepther busy for about an hour; but the whole company at once becameinterested in this chorus girl who could play the piano. 

Afterward Cabinska spoke with Janina a long time, and requested herto come to her home the following day after the rehearsal. 

Janina went straight from the theater to Sowinska's house to look ather room. 

CHAPTER IV

"The Management has the honor of requesting the presence of the ladyand gentleman artists of the Company, as also the members of theorchestra and the choruses, at a tea and social to be held at thehome of the Director on the 6th of this month, after theperformance. The Director of the Society of Dramatic Artists. (Signed) John, the Anointed, Cabinski. 

"Well, what do you say, Pepa? . . . Will this do? . . . " theDirector asked his wife after he had read aloud the invitation. 

"Teddy! be quiet, I can't hear what father is reading. " "Mamma, Eddy took my roll!"

"Papa, Teddy called me a jackass!"

"Silence! By God! with those children . . . Quiet them, Pepa. "

"If you give me a penny, pa, I'll be quiet. "

"And me too, me too!"

Cabinski held the whip on his knee under the table and waited; assoon as the children had advanced near enough, he sprang up andbegan to belabor them. 

There arose a squealing and screeching; the door flew open and thejunior directors went sliding down the banisters to theaccompaniment of howls. 

Cabinski calmly proceeded to read over again the invitation. 

"At what time do you wish to invite them?"

"After the performance. "

"You'll have to ask some of the reporters. But that must be donepersonally. "

"I haven't time. "

"Ask someone from the chorus to write the invitations for you. "

"Bah! And let them make stupid mistakes? Perhaps you will write themfor me, Pepa? . . . You have a neat hand. "

"No, it's not proper that I, the wife of the director, should writeto strange men. I told that . . . What is the name of the girl whomyou engaged for the chorus? . . . "

"Orlowska. "

"Yes . . . I told her to come here to-day. I like her. Kaczkowskatold me that she plays the piano excellently, so the thought struckme that . . . "

"Well then, let her write the invitations; if she plays the piano, she must also know how to write. "

"Not only that, but I think that she could teach Jadzia how toplay . . . "

"Do you know, that's not at all a bad idea! . . . We might includethat in her future salary. "

"How much are you paying her?" she asked, lighting a cigarette. 

"I have not yet agreed upon a price . . . But I will pay her as muchas I pay the others, " he answered with a strange smile. 

"Which means that . . . "

"That I'll pay her a great, a great deal . . . In the future. "

"Ha! ha! ha!"

Both began to laugh, and then became silent. 

"John, what do you propose for the supper?"

"I don't know as yet . . . I'll talk it over at the restaurant. We'll arrange it somehow . . . "

Cabinski proceeded to make a clean copy of the invitation, whilePepa sat in a rocking-chair, puffing away at her cigarette. 

"John! . . . Haven't you noticed anything peculiar about Majkowska'sacting, recently?"

"No, nothing . . . If she performs a little spasmodically, that'smerely her style. "

"A little! . . . Why, she goes into epileptic fits! The editor toldme the papers are calling attention to it. "

"For God's sake, Pepa! Do you want to drive away our best actress?You ousted Nicolette, who had a gallery of her own. "

"Well, and you had a great liking for her too; I happen to knowsomething about that. "

"And I could tell you something about that editor of yours . . . "

"What business is that of yours! . . . Do I interfere when you goprowling about backrooms with chorus girls?"

"But neither do I ask you what you do! . . . So what's the use ofquarreling about it? . . . Only I will not let you touch Majkowska!With you it's merely a question of intrigue, while with me it's oneof existence. You know right well that there is not another suchpair of heroic actors as Mela Majkowska and Topolski, anywhere inthe provinces, and perhaps not even at the Warsaw Theater. To tellthe truth, they are the sole props of our company! You want to oustMela, do you? . . . I tell you she has the sympathy of the wholepublic, the press praises her . . . And she has real talent! . . . "

"And I? . . . " she asked threateningly, facing him. 

"You? . . . You also have talent, but" . . . He added softly, "but . . . "

"There are no 'buts' about it! You are an absolute idiot. . . . Youhave no conception whatever about acting, or plays, or artists. Youare yourself a great artist, oh, such a great artist! Do youremember how you played the part of Francis in The Robbers? . . . Doyou? . . . If you don't, I'll tell you . . . You played it like ashoemaker, like a circus clown! . . . "

Cabinski sprang up as though someone had struck him with a whip. 

"That's a lie! The famous Krolikowski played it in the same way;they advised me to imitate him, and I did . . . "

"Krolikowski played like you? . . . You're a fool, my artist!"

"Pepa, you had better keep quiet, or I'll tell you what you are!"

"O tell me, please do tell me!" she cried out in a rage. 

"Nothing great, nor even anything small, my dear. "

"Tell me plainly what you mean . . . "

"Well then, I'll tell you that you are not a Modrzejewska, " laughedCabinski. 

"Silence, you clown! . . . " she yelled throwing her lightedcigarette at him. 

"Wait, wait, you backstairs prima donna, " he hissed, growing palewith rage. 

Cabinski in his dressing gown, torn at the elbows, in his nightclothes and slippers, began to pace up and down the room, whilePepa, just as she had arisen from sleep, unwashed, with yesterday'sstage make-up still adorning her face, and her hair all disheveled, whirled around in circles, her white and soiled petticoat rustling. 

They stared at each other with furious and threatening glances. Their old competitive enmity burst out in full force. They hatedeach other as artists because they mutually and irresistibly enviedeach other their talents and success with the public. 

"I played poorly, did I? . . . I played like a circus clown? . . . "he shouted. 

He seized a glass from one of the racks and hurled it to the floor. 

Quickly Pepa intercepted him and screened the dishes with her body. 

"Get out of the way!" he growled threateningly, clenching his fists. 

"These are mine!" she cried and threw the whole heap of dishes athis feet with such force that they broke into little bits. 

"You cow!"

"You fool!"

"Please ma'am, let me have the money for breakfast, " said the maid, at that instant entering. 

"Let my husband give it to you!" answered Cabinska, and with a proudstride, went into the next room, slamming the door after her. 

"Let me have the money, sir. It's late and the children are crying!"

He laid a ruble on the table, brushed his top hat with his sleeveand departed. 

The nurse took a pitcher and a basket for rolls and went out. 

The Cabinskis had no more time to think of their household than oftheir children, and cared for nothing, absorbed entirely by thetheater, their roles, and their struggle for success. The canvaswalls of the stage scenes and decorations representing elegantsalons and interiors sufficed them entirely; there they breathedmore freely and felt better. In the same way a canvas scenedepicting some wild landscape with a castle on the summit of achocolate-colored hill and a wood painted below sufficed them as asubstitute for real fields and woods. The smell of mastic, cosmetics, and perfume were to them the sweetest odors. They merelycame home to sleep, their real home, where they lived habitually, was on the stage and behind the scenes. 

Cabinski had been in the theater some twenty years, playingcontinually, and still, he desired each new role for himself andenvied others. 

Pepa never took account of anything, but listened only to hermomentary instinct and sometimes to her husband. She doted on themelodrama, on strained and nerve-thrilling situations; she liked asweeping gesture, an exalted tone of voice, and glaring novelties. Her pathos was often of the exaggerated variety, but she played withfervor. A certain play, or some accent or word would move her sodeeply that even after leaving the stage she would still shed realtears behind the scenes. 

She knew her parts better than anyone else, for she would memorizethem with mechanical precision. For her children she cared about asmuch as for her old dresses: she bore them and left them to the careof her husband and the nurse. 

Immediately after Cabinski's departure Pepa called through the door, "Nurse, come here!"

The nurse had just returned with the coffee and the boys whom shehad dragged in from the yard with difficulty. 

She served the breakfast to the children and promised: "Eddy . . . You will get a pair of new shoes . . . Papa will buy them for you. Teddy will get a new suit and Jadzia a dress . . . Drink yourcoffee, dears!"

She patted their heads, handed them the rolls and wiped their faceswith maternal solicitude. She loved them and fussed over them asthough they were her own children. 

"Nurse!" shouted Cabinska, sticking her head through the door. 

"Yes, I hear you. "

"Where is Tony?"

"She's gone to the laundry. "

"You will go, nurse, for my dress to Sowinska on Widok Street. Doyou know where it is? . . . "

"Of course, I know! . . . That skinny woman who's as cross as achained dog. . . . "

"Go right away. "

"Mamma! . . . Let us also go with nurse . . . " begged the children, for they feared their mother. 

"You will take the children along with you, nurse. "

"Of course, that's understood . . . I wouldn't leave them herealone!"

She dressed the children, put on a sort of woolen dress with broadred and white stripes, covered her head with a kerchief, and wentout with them. 

Cabinska dressed and was about to go out, when the bell rang. Asmall, rather corpulent and very active gentleman pushed his way in. It was the counselor. 

His face was carefully shaven, he wore gold-rimmed glasses on hissmall nose, and a smile, that seemed glued there, on his thin lips. 

"May I come in? . . . Will Madame Directress permit it? . . . Onlyfor a minute, for I must be right off again! . . . " he recitedrapidly. 

"Of course, the esteemed counselor is always welcome. . . . " calledCabinska, appearing. 

"Good morning! Pray let me kiss your little hand. . . . You lookcharming to-day. I merely dropped in here on my way . . . "

"Please be seated. "

The counselor sat down, wiped his glasses with his handkerchief, smoothed his very sparse, but ungrayed black hair, hastily crossedhis legs, and blinked a few times with neuralgic eyes. 

"I read in to-day's Messenger a very flattering mention about you, Madame Directress. "

"It's unmerited, for I don't know how that role ought to be played. "

"You played it beautifully, wonderfully!"

"Oh, you're a naughty flatterer, Mr. Counselor! . . . " she chided. 

"I speak nothing but the truth, the unadulterated truth, my word ofhonor!"

"Please ma'am it is already noon, " interrupted the nurse, who hadreturned. 

"You are bound for the theater, Madame Directress?"

"Yes, I'll drop in to see the rehearsal, and then take a walk abouttown. "

"Then we will go together, agreed? . . . " asked the counselor. "Onthe way we shall settle a little piece of business. "

Cabinska glanced at him uneasily. He was again blinking his eyes, crossing his feet, and adjusting his glasses which had a habit ofcontinually slipping off. 

"No doubt he wants that money, . . . " thought Cabinska, as they weregoing down the stairs. 

The counselor, in the meanwhile, was smiling and chirping away inhoneyed tones. 

This strange individual would show up at the garden-theater at thevery first performance and vanish after the last, until thefollowing spring. He freely loaned money which was never returned tohim. He would give suppers, bring gifts of candy to the actresses, take the young novices under his wing and was always reputed to bein love with some actress platonically. Immediately upon his firstappearance, Cabinski had borrowed one hundred rubles from him andbefore all those present he had intentionally forced him to acceptas security his wife's bracelet with the object of convincing themthat he had no money. 

They entered the theater and quietly took their seats, for therehearsal was already in full swing and Kaczkowska with Topolskiwere just in the midst of a capital love scene. 

The counselor listened, bowed on all sides with a smile andwhispered to the directress: "Love is a splendid thing . . . On thestage!"

"Even in life it is not bad, " she remarked. 

"True love is very rare in life, so I prefer it on the stage, forhere I can enjoy it every day, " he spoke hurriedly, and his eyelidsbegan to blink again. 

"You have been disillusioned, Counselor?"

"Oh no, by no means! . . . How are you, Piesh!"

"Well, sated with food, and bored, " replied a tall actor with ahandsome, thoughtful face, extending his hand. 

"Will you smoke some Egyptian cigarettes?"

"I will, if you will let me have some, " he answered coolly. 

"Mrs. Piesh is as well and as jealous as ever, eh? . . . " inquiredthe counselor, handing him a cigarette. 

"Just as you are always in a good humor . . . Both are diseases. "

"So you consider humor a disease, eh?" asked the counselor. 

"I hold that a normal man ought to be indifferent and care fornothing. "

"How long have you been riding that hobbyhorse?"

"Truth is usually learned late. "

"How long will you stick to that truth?"

"Perhaps forever, if I can find nothing better. "

"Piesh, to the stage!" came the voice of the stage-director. 

The actor arose stiffly, and with a quick, automatic step, wentbehind the scenes. 

"A curious, a very curious fellow!" whispered the counselor. 

"Yes, but very tiresome with his ever-lasting truths, ideals, andother foolish haberdashery!" cried a young actor dressed like a dollin a light suit, a pink-striped shirt and yellow calf-skin pumps. 

"Ah, Wawrzecki! . . . You must have again slain some innocentbeauty, for your face is as radiant as the sun . . . "

"It's easy for you to joke, Mr. Counselor! . . . " he defendedhimself with a knowing smile, advancing his shapely foot. He posedgracefully, raised his hand, and flashed his jeweled rings, for thedirectress was gazing at him through half-closed eyes. 

"Well then, in your estimation who is not tiresome, eh? . . . Comenow, confess my boy!"

"The counselor, for he has humor and a good heart; the director whenhe pays; the public when it applauds us; pretty and kind women, thespring, if it is warm; people, when they are happy, all that isbeautiful pleasant and smiling; while tiresome things are all thosethat are ugly: cares, tears, suffering, poverty, old age andcold. . . . "

"Who is that young lady over there?" inquired the counselor, pointing to Janina who was listening attentively to the rehearsal. 

"A novice. "

"She has an engaging expression. Her face shows good breeding andintelligence. Do you know who she is? . . . "

"Wicek!" called Cabinska to the boy who was playing about thegarden, "go and ask that lady, standing near the box, to come here. "

Wicek ran over to Janina circled about her, glanced into her eyesand said: "The old woman over there wishes to see you. "

"What old woman? . . . Who? . . . " she asked, unable to understandhim. 

"Cabinska, Mrs. Pepa, the directress, of course! . . . "

Janina approached slowly, while the counselor observed her intently. 

"Please have a seat, mademoiselle. This is our dear counselor, thepatron of our theater, " spoke Cabinska, introducing him. 

"I beg your pardon!" cried the counselor, grasping her hand andturning the palm to the light. 

"Don't be afraid, Miss Orlowska! . . . The counselor has an innocentmania of fortune telling, " cried Cabinska merrily, peering over theshoulder of the counselor into the palm he was examining. 

"Ho! ho! a strange one, a strange one!" whispered the old man. 

He took from his pocket a small magnifying-glass and through itexamined minutely the lines of the palm, the fingernails, the fingerjoints, and the entire hand. 

"Ladies and gentlemen! We tell fortunes here from the hands, thefeet, and something else besides! . . . Here we predict the future, and dispense talent, virtue, and money in the future. Admission onlyfive copecks, only five copecks! . . . For the poorer people onlyten groszy! Please step in, ladies and gentlemen, please step in!"cried Wawrzecki, excellently imitating the voice of the show crierson Ujazdowski Square. 

The actors and actresses surrounded the trio on all sides. 

"Tell us something, Mr. Counselor!"

"Will she marry soon?"

"When will she eclipse Modrzejewska?"

"Will she get a rich hubby?"

"How many suitors has she had in the past?"

The counselor did not answer, but quietly continued to examine bothof Janina's palms. 

She heard those derisive remarks, but was unable to move, for thatstrange man actually held her pinned to her seat. She felt herselfburning with anger, yet could not move her hands which he held. 

Finally, the counselor released her and said to those surroundingthem: "For once you might refrain from your clownishness, forsometimes it is not so foolish as it is inhuman. I beg your pardon, mademoiselle, for having exposed you to their rudeness, . . . Igreatly beg your pardon, but I simply could not resist examiningyour hands; that is my weakness. . . . "

He kissed her hand ostentatiously and turned to the surprisedCabinska: "Come, let us go, Mrs. Directress!"

Janina was consumed with such curiosity, that, in spite of all thosespectators, she asked quietly: "Will you not tell me anything Mr. Counselor?"

The counselor gazed about him, and then bent toward Janina andwhispered very quietly: "Now, I cannot . . . In two weeks, when Ireturn, I will tell you all. "

"Oh come, Counselor!" cried Cabinska, "Oh, I almost forgot! . . . Will it be possible for you to come to see me after the rehearsalMiss Orlowska?" she asked, turning to Janina. 

"Certainly, I'll come, " answered Janina, resuming her seat. 

"Where shall we go, Madame Directress?" asked the counselor. Heseemed less jovial, and wrapt in thought. 

"I suppose we might go to my pastry shop. "

Cabinska did not question him, and only after they had seatedthemselves at the pastry shop, where she regularly spent a few hourseach day, drinking chocolate, smoking cigarettes, and gazing at thestreet crowds, did she venture to ask him with a pretendedindifference: "What did you notice in that hussy's hands, Mr. Counselor?"

The counselor shifted impatiently, put his binoculars upon his nose, and called to the waiter, "Black coffee and very light chocolate!"

Then he turned to Cabinska. "You see, that is a secret . . . To besure, one that means little, but nevertheless, not my own todisclose. "

Cabinska insisted, for merely to say: "a secret, " throws all womenout of balance; but he told her nothing, only remarking abruptly, "Iam leaving town, Mrs. Directress. "

"Where are you going?" she inquired, greatly surprised. 

"I must . . . " he said, "I will return in two weeks. Before I go, Iwould like to settle our . . . "

Cabinska frowned and waited to hear what he would say further. 

"For you see, it might happen that I would return only in the fallwhen you will no longer be in Warsaw. "

"I surmised long ago that you were an old usurer, " Cabinska wasthinking, tinkling her glass with a spoon. 

"Some fruit cakes!" he called to the waiter and then, turning to heragain, continued . . . "And that is why I wish to return to you, dear lady, your bracelet. "

"But we have not yet the money. Our success is continually beinginterrupted . . . We have so many old payments to meet . . . "

"Oh, don't bother about the money. Imagine that I am giving you thisfor your name day as a small token of friendship . . . Will you?" heasked, slipping the bracelet upon her plump wrist. 

"Oh, Counselor, Counselor! if I did not love my John so much, Iwould . . . " she cried, overjoyed at regaining her bracelet withoutany obligations. She squeezed his hands so heartily and beamed uponhim with her joyous gaze so closely, that he felt her breath uponhis cheeks. 

He gently pushed her aside, biting his lips. 

"Ah, Counselor, you are an ideal man!"

"Oh, let us drop that! . . . You can invite me to be a godfather toyour next child. "

"Oh, you're a rogue, Mr. Counselor! . . . What's that? . . . Youalready want to depart?"

"My train leaves in two hours. Goodbye!"

He paid the bill at the buffet and hurried away, sending her a smilethrough the window. 

Cabinska still sat there, gazing out upon the street. 

"Is it possible that he loves me?" she thought to herself, sippingher cooled chocolate. 

She pulled some role out of her pocket, read a few lines, and againgazed out upon the street. 

The dilapidated hacks, pulled by lean horses, dragged along lazily;the tramways rumbled by; along the sidewalks people threaded like along, immovable ribbon. 

The clock chimed three. Cabinska arose and started for home, walkingslowly until she spied the editor walking with Nicolette and thecalm horizon of her mind suddenly became clouded. 

"He, with Nicolette? . . . With that . . . Base intriguer?"

Already from a distance she scorched them with the gaze of a Gorgon. 

At the corner of Warecka Street, Nicolette suddenly disappeared andthe editor approached her with a beaming countenance. 

"Good morning! . . . " he cried, extending his hand. 

Pepa measured him coolly and turned her face away. 

"What sort of nonsense is this, Pepa?" he asked, quietly. 

"Oh, you are unspeakably mean!" she retorted. 

"A comedy of some kind again? . . . " he queried. 

"You dare to speak to me in that way?"

"Well . . . I'll quit then and merely say: good-day!" he snappedback angrily, bowed stiffly and, before she could bethink herself, jumped into a hack and drove away. 

Cabinska was petrified with indignation. 

Cabinska, on returning home whipped the children, scolded the nurse, and locked herself in her room. 

She heard her husband enter, ask for her, and knock at her door;when dinner was served, she did not come out, but paced angrily upand down her room. 

Soon thereafter, Janina arrived. Cabinska greeted her cordially inher boudoir, becoming suddenly unrecognizably hospitable. 

Janina left alone, began to explore that boudoir with curiosity, for, although the entire house looked like a junk shop, or arailroad waiting-room of the third class, filled with packs, valisesand trunks, this one room possessed an almost luxurious air. It hadtwo windows opening upon the garden, the walls were decorated with apaper resembling brocatelle, and cupids were painted on the ceiling. The grotesquely carved furniture was upholstered with crimson silkstriped with gold. A cream-colored rug in imitation of antiqueItalian covered the floor. A set of Shakespeare, bound in gildedmorocco lay on a lacquered table painted in Chinese designs. 

Janina did not pay much attention to all this, for she was entirelyabsorbed by the wreaths hanging on the walls which bore suchinscriptions as these: "To our companion on the occasion of herbirthday, " "To a distinguished artist, " "From the grateful public, ""To the Directress from the Company, " "From the admirers of yourtalent. " The laurel branches and palm leaves were yellow andshrunken from age and hung there covered with dust and cobwebs. Thebroad white, yellow, and red ribbons streamed down the walls likeseparate colors of the rainbow with their gold-stamped lettersproclaiming glories that had long since passed into oblivion. Thoseinscriptions and withered wreaths gave the room the appearance of amortuary chapel. 

Janina was looking through an album, when Cabinska quietly entered. Her face wore an expression of suffering and melancholy; she droppeddown heavily into a chair, sighed deeply and whispered, "Pardon mefor letting you bore yourself here. "

"Oh I didn't feel a bit bored!"

"This is my sanctuary. Here I lock myself up when life becomesunbearable. I come here to recall a happy past and to dream of thatwhich will never more return . . " she added, indicating the rolesand the wreaths hanging on the walls. 

"Are you ill, Madame Directress? . . . Perhaps I am intruding, andsolitude is the best medicine. " Janina spoke with sincere sympathy. 

"Oh, please stay! . . . It affords me real relief to speak with aperson who is, as yet, a stranger to this world of falsehood andvanity!" she said with emphasis, as though reciting a role. 

"I don't know whether I am worthy of your confidence, " answeredJanina modestly. 

"Oh, my artistic intuition never deceives me! . . . I pray you sitnearer to me! So you have never before been in the theater, mademoiselle?"

"No. "

"How I envy you! . . . Ah, if I could begin over again, I would notknow all this bitterness and disappointment! Do you love thetheater?"

"I have sacrificed almost everything for it. "

"Oh, the fate of artists is a sad one! One must sacrifice all;peace, domestic happiness, love, family, and friends and forwhat? . . . For that which they write about us; for such wreathsthat last only a few days; for the handclaps of the tiresomethrong. . . . Oh, beware the provinces, mademoiselle! . . . Look atme . . . Do you see those wreaths? . . . They are splendid andwithered, are they not? And yet, not so long ago I played atLwow. . . . "

She paused for a moment as though fascinated by the memory of thosedays. 

"The stages of the whole world were open to me. The director of theComedie Francaise came purposely to see me and offer me anengagement. . . . "

"You possess also a mastery of French, madame?"

"Do not interrupt me. I was paid a salary of several thousandrubles; the papers could not find words strong enough to praise myacting; I was pelted with flowers and bracelets set with diamonds!(She unconsciously adjusted her cheap bracelet. ) Counts and princescourted my favors. . . . Then came a great misfortune which changedeverything; I fell in love . . . Yes, do not wonder at that! Iloved, as deeply as it is possible to love, the most beautiful andbest man in the whole world. . . . He was a nobleman, a prince andheir to a large estate. We were about to be married. I cannot tellyou how happy we were! . . . Then . . . Like a bolt from the bluesky . . . His family, the old prince, a tyrannical magnate without aheart parted us. . . . He took him away and wanted to pay me ahundred thousand guldens or even a million, if only I would renouncemy beloved. I threw the money at his feet and showed him the door. He avenged himself cruelly. He spread the most dishonorablecalumnies about me, bribed the press, and persecuted me at everystep, the base wretch! . . . I had to leave Lwow and my life took anentirely different turn . . . A different turn . . . "

Cabinska paced up and down the room, tears in her eyes, love in hersmile, a sad bitterness upon her lips, a tragic mask of resignationupon her face, forsaken, violent grief in her voice. 

She acted the tale with such mastery that Janina believedeverything. 

"If you knew how sincerely I sympathize with you, madame! . . . Whata dreadful fate!"

"That is already past! . . . " answered Cabinska, dropping into herchair. 

She herself had come almost to believe in those stories, retold withnumerous variations a hundred times over to all those who werewilling to listen. Sometimes, on ending her account, moved by thepicture of that fancied misfortune, she would actually suffer. 

Cabinska had acted the parts of so many unfortunate and betrayedwomen that she had already lost all memory of the bounds of her ownindividuality; her own emotions became merged and identified in evergreater degree with the characters which she impersonated, and thusit happened that her fanciful tales were not downright lies. 

After a long silence, Cabinska asked in a calm voice, "You live atMrs. Sowinska's, mademoiselle?"

"Not yet, " answered Janina, "I have already rented the room, butthey have to renovate it. In the meanwhile, I am living at thehotel. "

"Kaczkowska and Halt told me that you play the piano very well. "

"A little bit. "

"I wanted to ask you, if you would not teach my Yadzia? . . . She isa very bright girl and has a good ear for music. "

"With real pleasure. My knowledge is rather limited, but I can teachyour daughter the rudiments of music. . . . Only, I don't knowwhether I will have enough time. . . . "

"Oh, certainly! And as to your fee, we shall include that in yoursalary. "

"Very well. . . . Is your daughter already started?"

"Excellently. You can convince yourself immediately. . . . Nurse, bring Yadzia here!" called Cabinska. 

They passed into the next room in which stood the director's bed, afew packs and baskets, and an old rattle-box of a piano. 

Janina heard Yadzia play and agreed that she would give her lessonsregularly between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, when herparents were not at home. 

"When are you to make your first appearance at the theater?" askedCabinska. 

"To-day, in the Gypsy Baron. "

"Have you a costume?"

"Miss Falkowska promised to loan me one. "

"Come with me. . . . Perhaps I'll find something for you. . . . "

They went into the room where the children slept with the nurse. Cabinska pulled out of a package a fairly well-preserved costume andgave it to Janina. 

"You see, mademoiselle, we furnish the costumes, but since themembers of the company prefer to have their own, because ours, ofcourse, cannot be so very elegant, ours often lie here unused. . . . I will loan you this one. "

"I also will have my own. "

"That is best. "

They took leave of each other very cordially and the nurse carriedJanina's costume after her to the hotel. 

With such passionate eagerness did Janina anticipate her firstappearance on the stage, that she arrived at the theater when therewas hardly anyone as yet behind the scenes. The chorus girlsassembled slowly and dressed even more slowly. Conversation, laughter, subdued whisperings went on as usual, but she heardnothing, so preoccupied was she with her dressing. 

They all began to help her, laughing because she did not even havepowder or rouge. 

"What, you never powdered yourself?" they chorused. 

"No . . . What for? . . . " she answered simply. 

"We'll have to make her a face, for she's too pale, " remarked one ofthem. 

They rubbed her face with a layer of white cosmetic, shaded thiswith rouge, carmined her lips, underscored her eyes with a littlepencil dipped in black pigment, and curled and pinned her hair. Shewas passed on from hand to hand and given a thousand advices andwarnings. 

"On entering the stage look straight at the public, so that youdon't trip. "

"And before you enter, see that you cross yourself. "

"Always enter with your right foot foremost. "

"Now you look fine! . . . But do you want to appear on the stage inshort skirts without wearing tights?"

"I haven't any! . . . "

All began to laugh at her embarrassed look. 

"I will loan you a pair, " cried Zielinska. "I think they'll fityou. " They treated her with undisguised favor, for they had heardthat she was to teach Cabinska's daughter and that Pepa had loanedher a costume. 

Janina, looking in the mirror, hardly recognized herself. It seemedas though she wore a mask, only slightly resembling her own face andwith that strange expression that all the chorus girls wore. 

She went downstairs to Sowinska. 

"My dear madame, tell me truly, how do I look?" she begged, allexcited and flushed. 

Sowinska scrutinized her from all sides and, with her finger, spreadthe rouge more thoroughly on her cheeks. 

"Who gave you that costume?" she asked. 

"Madame Directress loaned it to me. "

"Oh! something must have melted her today!"

"She told me such sad stories. . . . "

"The actress! . . . If she only played that way on the stage therewould be no better in the world. "

"You must be joking, madame! . . . She told me about Lwow and herpast. "

"She's a liar, that old hag! She was then the sweetheart of somehussar and made such scandals that they turned her out of thetheater. What was she at the Lwow theater? . . . A chorus girl only. Ho! ho! those are old tricks. . . . We all know them here longsince!"

"Tell me how I look?" asked Janina at length. 

"Beautiful. . . . I'll wager they'll all be chasing after you!"

An increasing nervousness seized Janina. She walked up and down thestage, peered through the hole in the curtain, viewed herself in allthe mirrors, and then tried to sit still and wait, but could notendure it. The feverish excitement and nervousness attendant upon afirst appearance shook her as with the ague. She could not stand orsit still for a single moment. 

It seemed as though she did not see the people, the preparationsthat were going on about her, the lights, or even the stage itself, but only had in her brain the reflection of a confused and movingmass of eyes and faces. At each moment she would gaze with terror atthe audience and feel as though her heart were ceasing to beat. 

When the bell rang for the second time, she hurried off the stageand took her place in the chorus that was already assembled behindthe scenes; while waiting for the moment to enter, she unconsciouslycrossed herself, and her whole body trembled so violently that oneof the chorus girls, noticing her confusion, took her by the arm. 

"Enter!" shouted the stage-director. The throng carried her alongwith it and pushed her to the front of the stage. 

The sudden silence and magnified glare of light restored her sensessomewhat, and after leaving the stage she stood behind one of thescenes and completely regained her composure. 

On her second entrance she felt only a slight tremor. She sang, heard the music, and gazed straight at the public. She was alsoemboldened by seeing the editor sitting in the front row andencouraging her with a friendly smile. She kept looking at him andafter that she was able to distinguish with increasing clearnessindividual faces in the audience. 

In some scene in which the chorus promenaded about the back of thestage, while a comic dialogue was going on at the front, Janina'scompanions indulged in whispered conversations. 

"Brona, look! Your fellow is there in the third row toward theleft. "

"Oh look! Dasha is in the theater . . . Goodness, how she is dolledup. . . . "

"Siwinska! fasten my hooks, for I feel my skirt is falling down. "

"Lou! your wig is coming off. "

"Look to your own shags!"

"I'm going to Marceline with someone to-morrow . . . Perhaps youwill go with us, Zielinska?"

"Look at the eyes that student is making at me!"

"I don't care a snap for penniless plugs. "

"But what merry chaps they are!"

"No, thank you! They have nothing but whiskey and sardines. That's atreat, only for those of the street. "

"Hush! Cabinska is sitting in that box. "

"My gracious, what a maidenly make-up she has to-day!"

"Quiet, we sing!"

Behind the scenes stood a great variety of people: waitresses, stage-hands, restaurant boys, and actors waiting for their cues toenter all these were gazing on the stage. 

Cabinska's nurse, with the two eldest children, was sitting near theproscenium under the ropes of the curtain. 

Wawrzecki from behind the scenes was violently beckoning to Mimi whowas just then singing a duet with Wladek. In the pauses, the actresswould spitefully stick out her tongue at him. 

"Give me the key to the house . . . I forgot my shoes, and I needthem right away!" he whispered. 

"It's in my skirt pocket in the dressing-room, " she answered, backing away toward the center of the stage with a broad musicalphrase on her lips. 

"Halt" was banging the desk with his baton, for Wladek was cuttingshort his tones and continually wavering. The threatening anger ofthe orchestra director only made him all the more nervous, and hissinging was growing steadily worse. 

"The damned Hun is purposely trying to trip me!" he muttered angrilyunder his breath, embracing the singing Mimi in the love scene. 

"For God's sake don't squeeze me so hard!" panted Mimi, at the sametime smiling at him rapturously. 

"For I adore you with the frenzy of love . . . For I adore you!"sang Wladek with fiery intonation. 

"Are you crazy? I will be all black and blue and . . "

She suddenly broke off, for Wladek had finished his song and theapplause came roaring like an avalanche, so she pulled him by thehand and they walked to the front of the stage to bow to theaudience. 

During the intermission Janina observed the editor standing in thecenter aisle, conversing with some stout, blond man. 

"Can you tell me, sir, with what paper that editor is connected?"Janina asked the stage-director, who was supervising the arrangementof the scenery for the next act. 

"With no paper, probably. He's merely a theatrical critic. "

"He told me himself that . . . "

"Ha, ha!" laughed the stage-director, "I see you're green!"

"But he is sitting in the chairs reserved for the press, " persistedJanina stating what she thought was a convincing argument. 

"What of that? There are more of his kind there. Do you see thatlight blonde? He alone is a real writer and the rest are merelymigratory birds. God alone knows what their occupation is . . . Butsince they hobnob with everybody, talk a lot, have money fromsomewhere, and occupy the foremost places everywhere, no one evenbothers asking who they are. "

"Ah, you look so fascinating, so fascinating" cried the editor atthat instant rushing in upon the stage and already from a distanceextending his hands to her. "A veritable portrait by Greuze! Only alittle more courage and everything will go smoothly. I will insertan item to-morrow about your first appearance on the stage. "

"Thank you, " she answered coolly, without looking at him. 

The editor turned about and made off for the actors' dressing-room. 

"Good evening, gentlemen!" he called entering. 

"How are things going in the hall? Were you at the box office? . . . "

"Nearly all the seats are sold out. "

"How is the play taking?"

"Well, very well! . . . I see, Mr. Director that you havereplenished the chorus: that charming, new blonde attracts alleyes . . . . "

"Good, good. . . . Hurry there, give me my belly!"

"Mr. Director, please let me have an order for two rubles. I mustimmediately send for my boots, " begged some actor, hastily pullingon his costume. 

"After the performance!" answered Cabinski, holding the pillow tohis stomach, "tie it fast, Andy!"

They wrapt him about with long strips like a mummy. 

"Mr. Director, I need my boots on the stage. . . . I cannot playwithout them!"

"Go to the devil, my dear sir, and don't disturb me now. . . . Ring!" he called to the stage-director. 

Cabinski, whenever he played, created a big confusion in thedressing-room. He always suffered from stage fright, so he would tryto overcome it by shouting, scolding, and quarreling over everytrifle. The costumer, the tailor, the property man all had to hustleabout him and continually remind him lest he forget something. Despite the fact that he always commenced dressing early, he wasalways late. Only on the stage did he recover his equanimity. 

Now it was the same; his cane had been mislaid and he rushed about, wildly shouting: "My cane! Who took my cane! . . . My cane! Damn it!I must go right on!"

"You snort like an elephant in the dressing-room, but on the stageyou buzz as quietly as a fly, " slowly remarked Stanislawski, whohated all noises. 

"If you don't like to hear it, go out into the hall. "

"I'll stay right here, and I want quiet. No one can dress in peacewith you around. "

"Podesta, to the stage!" called the stage-director. 

Cabinski ran out, grabbed a cane out of somebody's hand, tied ablack handkerchief about his neck and rushed on the stage. 

Stanislawski departed behind the scenes, all the others dispersed, and the dressing-room became deserted, only the tailor remaining togather up the costumes scattered over the floor and tables and takethem to the storeroom. 

In the dressing-room of the leading ladies of the caste such a stormhad broken loose that Cabinski, who was just leaving the stage, wentthere to pour oil on the troubled waters. 

As he entered, Kaczkowska threw herself at him from one side andMimi from the other; both grasped him by the hands and each soughtto out-shout the other. 

"If you allow such things to happen, Director, I will leave thecompany! . . . "

"It's a scandal, Director! . . . Everybody saw it. . . . I will notstay in her company another hour!"

"Director! she . . . "

"Now don't lie!"

"It's insulting!"

"It's base and ridiculous!"

"For God's sake! what's all this about?" cried Cabinski indesperation. 

"I will tell you how it happened, Director. 

"It is I who ought to tell, for she is a liar!"

"Now my dears, please be quiet or I swear I'll go right out. "

"It was this way. I received a bouquet, for it was most plainlyintended for me, and this . . . Lady, who happened to be standingnearer, cut me off and took my bouquet. . . . And, instead of givingit to me, to whom it belonged, she brazenly bowed and kept it forherself!" cried Kaczkowska amid tears and bursts of anger. 

At that Mimi began to cry. 

"Mimi, you will blur the paint under your eyes!" called someone. 

Mimi immediately stopped crying. 

"What do you ladies want me to do?" asked Cabinski, when he found anopportunity to speak. 

"Tell her to give me back that bouquet and apologize. "

"I can, but with my fist . . . " retorted Mimi. "You can ask thechorus, Director . . . They all saw. "

"The chorus from the fourth act!" called Cabinski behind the scenes. 

There entered a throng of women and men already half-undressed, andamong them Janina. 

"Well, let us arrange a judgment of Solomon!"

An increasing number of onlookers began to crowd into thedressing-room and derisive remarks, aimed at the generally dislikedKaczkowska, flew about. 

"Who saw to whom the bouquet was given?" asked Cabinski. 

"We weren't taking notice, " all replied, unwilling to incur thedisfavor of either of the contestants. Only Janina who detestedinjustice, finally said: "The bouquet was given to Miss Zarzecka. Istood beside her and saw distinctly. "

"What does that calf want here? She came from the street and thinksshe can interfere in what's none of her business!" cried Kaczkowska. 

Janina advanced, her voice hoarse with anger. 

"You have no right to insult me, madame!" she cried. "Do you hear! Ihaven't ever let anyone insult me, nor will I!"

A strange silence suddenly fell, for all were impressed by thedignity and force of Janina's words. She glared at Kaczkowska withglowing eyes and then turned on her heel and left the room. 

Cabinski had fled to the box office after hastily divesting himselfof his costume. 

"Whew! she's a sound nut, that new one. "

"Kaczkowska will never forgive her that . . . "

"What can she do? . . . Miss Orlowska has the backing of themanagement. "

Mimi, immediately after the play, went to the dressing-room of thechorus where she found Janina still agitated. 

"How good you are!" cried the actress effusively. 

"What I did was right . . . That's all, " Janina replied. 

"Take a trip with us to Bielany, won't you?" begged Mimi. 

"When? . . . And who are going?"

"We're going within the next few days. There will be Wawrzecki, I, acertain author, a very jolly chap, whose play we are to present, Majkowska, Topolski and you. You must come with us!"

After lengthy persuasions and kisses, which Janina receivedindifferently, she finally agreed to accompany them. 

They waited for Wawrzecki and afterwards all went together to apastry shop for tea, taking with them also Topolski, who therecomposed a circular addressed to the whole company requesting themto appear without fail at the morrow's rehearsal, punctually at teno'clock. 

CHAPTER V

For Cabinski all days on which there was a performance wereimportant days, but only three days were extraordinary: ChristmasEve, Easter Day, and . . . The name day of his wife which fell onthe 19th of July, sacred to St. Vincent de Paul. On those three daysthe director and his wife would hold a reception on a grand scale. 

Cabinski the miser would vanish, and in his place would appearCabinski the munificent, dispensing hospitality after the ancientcustom of the Polish nobility, while certain deeply hiddenhereditary cells of lavishness opened up in his ego. The guests werereceived and feted generously and no expense was spared. And, iflater, as a result of this, advances on salaries were smaller for amonth or so, their deferment more frequent, and the director'scomplaints of a deficit more numerous, hardly anyone minded, for allenjoyed themselves to the utmost, particularly on the name day ofthe directress. 

Cabinska's Christian name was Vincentine, but none bothered theirheads about why her husband called her "Pepa, " for nobody wasinterested to that extent. 

In accordance with the announcement of Topolski, the companyassembled punctually for the rehearsal. They were to play The Martyrby D'Ennery, in which the title role, one of the showiest and mostlachrymose in her repertory, was invariably acted each year by thedirectress. She played it really well, putting into it her entirestore of tears and vocal lamentations, and had the deep satisfactionof thrilling the public. 

Those name day performances were usually a real benefit for allkinds of novices, for the caste was purposely made up of the poorestplayers so that the acting of Pepa might thereby shine forth moreeffectively. 

Cabinska went direct to the stage without speaking to anyone andduring the entire rehearsal wore on her face an expression of tenderemotion and absorption. At the end of the rehearsal the entirecompany gathered about her and Topolski came forward. Cabinskamodestly lowered her eyes and, pretending to be surprised, waited. 

"Allow me, esteemed Directress to extend to you in the name of yourfellow-actors and actresses their most cordial felicitations on theoccasion of your name day and to wish you with all our hearts thatyou may continue to remain for a long time the ornament of our stageand a blessing to your husband and children. In gratefulappreciation of your artistic services and your companionship, thecompany begs you, my dear madame, to accept this humble token of ouraffection which is only a poor return for your goodness andkind-heartedness. "

Topolski ended and handed her an open case in which was a set ofsapphire gems bought from the contributions of the whole company. Hekissed her hand and stepped aside. 

Then all began to approach Cabinska separately; the men kissed herhands, while the women threw themselves on her neck withprotestations of friendship and good wishes. 

Wladek, who had been the first to pay his tribute at hand-kissing, drew Topolski aside behind the scenes. 

"Spit out the dregs of that congratulatory tommyrot, or you'llpoison yourself with such a big dose of hypocrisy. "

"But it won't poison her. "

"Bah! the sapphires cost one hundred and twenty rubles; for so muchmoney she can listen a whole week. "

"Thank you, thank you with my whole heart! You put me to shame mydear comrades, for in truth I do not know what I have done to meritso much kindness, " said Cabinska with emotion. Really, the sapphireswere very pretty. 

The director smiled, rubbed his hands, and invited all to his homeafter the performance. 

The directress singled out for a particularly effusive kiss Janinawho, led by sympathy, had brought her a lovely bouquet of roses, explaining that she had not contributed to the fund for the generalgift as it was collected before her advent into the company. 

Cabinska would not part with Janina and took her along with her todinner. 

"Truly, they must be very good people and must love you, " saidJanina at the table. 

"Once a year will not ruin them, " answered Cabinska merrily. 

Together they went to the pastry shop so as not to interfere withthe preparations that were being made for the evening reception. Shesat there relating to Janina the history of her past name daycelebrations with a tender pathos which could not, however, disguisea certain feeling of bitterness and uneasiness over the fact thatthe editor had not even sent her a card of greeting. 

The performance was a real ovation. From the public she received amass of flowers, while the editor sent her a big basket of themtogether with an imposing bracelet. 

That overwhelmed her. As soon as he appeared behind the scenes, shedrew him into the darkest corner and kissed him with fiery passion. 

The Cabinski home presented an unusual appearance. In the firstroom, in the middle of a huge rug that completely covered the dirtyfloor, was a circular stand bearing a fan-shaped palm, while twomirrors with marble consoles stood in the corners. Heavy, cherry-colored, velvet portieres were draped over the windows andthe doors. A clump of azaleas and rhododendrons between the windowsformed an oasis of gorgeous greenery, accentuating the beautifullines of a yellowish plaster statue of Venus de Milo which stood ona pedestal draped with purple cloth. 

The piano at the further end of the room, decked with a garland ofartificial flowers, bore upon it a huge golden tray stacked withvisiting cards. Four little tables with little blue chairssurrounding them were placed in the most brilliantly lighted partsof the room. The tarnished and chipped gilded frames of the mirrorswere skillfully masked with red muslin, pinned artistically withflowers. The torn wall paper was covered with pictures. The wholesalon presented so elegant and artistic an appearance, thatCabinska, on returning from the theater stood amazed and cried outenthusiastically: "A splendid scene! . . . John you are amaster-decorator!"

"Heavens! . . . It's as beautiful as in a comedy!" added the nurse, crossing the salon on tiptoe. 

The second and larger room which ordinarily served the purpose of astore room, crammed with scenic odds and ends, had now beentransformed into a dining room and dazzled with its restaurant-likesplendor: the whiteness of its table covers, its polished trays, itsbouquets of flowers, its mass of burnished dishes, and itsformality. 

Cabinska hardly had time to dress herself in a stately lily-coloredgown in which her faded complexion, ruined by cosmetics, took on ayouthful expression and freshness, when the company began throngingin. The ladies retired to Cabinska's room adjoining the boudoir, while the gentlemen left their street attire in the kitchen dividedin two by a French wall painted in the style of Louis XV, which hadbeen brought from the stage. 

Wicek, in theatrical livery that consisted of boots with yellow, cardboard tops, a blue spencer a few sizes too big for him, deckedwith red cord and a mass of gold buttons, helped the actors to layaside their wraps with a grave and stiff mien, like a real groomfrom an English comedy; but his roguish disposition could not longendure the mood. 

"What a monkey the director has made of me, eh? My own motherwouldn't know me in these duds. No doubt I'll have to pay for it allby going without supper or absolution!" he whispered, smiling. 

The ladies all in gala array, rouged and charming, began to fill theroom with a stiff and icy atmosphere, sitting about immovable andshy. 

Janina arrived rather late, for she had a long distance to come fromher hotel, and wished to dress carefully. She greeted everyone, andher eyes wandered with a look of surprise over the room, struck bythe tone of solemnity that reigned over all. Dressed in acream-colored silk gown shading off into heliotrope, with gentiansin her hair and corsage, tall and lithe, with her rosy complexionand reddish-golden hair, she looked very original and beautiful. Shepossessed a great deal of grace and natural distinction, and movedabout with ease, as though accustomed to the atmosphere of thesalon, while the rest of the company felt unnatural and constrainedby the theatrical elegance of their surroundings. They walked about, conversed and smiled, as though they were on the stage, playing somevery difficult role that demanded continual attention. One could seethat the very carpet under their feet restrained them, that they satdown with a certain fear on the silk-lined chairs, that they seemedto be merely passing through the room, afraid to touch any of theobjects about them. 

It was a festive reception with wine served by the restaurantwaiters, and with trays of cakes and liqueurs circulating about inponderous bottles. This only added to the restraint of the ladies. They knew not how to eat or drink gracefully, they feared to staintheir dresses and the furniture and feared also to serve as the buttof ridicule for a few gentlemen who were not at all impressed withthis sham elegance, and were gazing at them and making spitefulremarks. 

Majkowska, who to-day presented a truly stately appearance in herlight yellow dress with a border of roses, with her black, almostebony hair, olive complexion, and classically beautiful face--atypical Veronese--took Janina by the arm and gracefully promenadedabout the salon with her, casting proud glances at those about them. 

On the other hand, her mother, whom some mischievous person hadseated on a little tabouret, was undergoing agonies. She had in onehand a glassful of wine, in the other a tart and a cake in her lap. She drank the wine and was at a loss what to do with the glass. Shegazed pleadingly at her daughter, grew red in the face, and finallyasked Zielinska, who was sitting near her: "My dear lady, what shallI do with this glass?"

"Stand it under the chair. "

The old woman did as she was advised. Everyone began to laugh ather, so she picked it up again and held it in her hand. 

Old Mrs. Niedzielska, the mother of Wladek and the owner of a houseon Piwna Street, who was always honored by the Cabinskis, sat underthe shade of the palm grove with Kaczkowska, and continuallyfollowed her son with her eyes. 

The men in the dining room were, meanwhile, storming the buffet. 

"Where do you get your everlasting humor, Glas?" asked Razowiec, who, although he was the gloomiest actor in the company, played theparts of the merriest rakes and the funniest uncles. 

"That is a public secret. I do not worry, and I have a gooddigestion, " answered Glas. 

"You have precisely that which I am lacking. . . . Do you know Itried the recipe which you recommended, but got no results . . . Nothing will help me any more. I feel certain that I shall notoutlive this winter for if my stomach does not pain me it is myback, if it isn't my back then it's my heart, or else this dreadfulpain passes into my neck and racks my spine as with an iron rod. "

"Imagination! Drink a cognac to me. . . . Don't think of yourillness and you'll be well. "

"You laugh, but I tell you truly that I can no longer sleep forwhole nights at a time . . . . "

"Imagination, I tell you! Drink a cognac to me!"

"It is easy for those who have never suffered to ridicule. "

"I have suffered, my God, I have suffered. | . . Drink a cognac tome! I once ate in the restaurant 'Under the Star' such a cutlet thatI lay in bed a whole week after it and writhed like an eel withpain. "

They retired to the further end of the buffet near the window andcontinued their conversation. The one complained and lamented, theother ceaselessly laughed, saying every minute, "Drink a cognac tome!"

"Maurice, " called Majkowska in a whisper, lifting the portieres. 

Topolski bent over toward her and she murmured into his ear: "I loveyou! . . . Do you know? . . . " and she passed on, conversing withJanina. 

Throughout the salon formed small groups of people conversing. 

Cabinski kept running about continually, inviting the guests todrink, pouring out the liquors for them, and kissing everybody. 

Pepa sat in the salon with the editor and Kotlicki, who was one ofthe steady patrons of the theater. She was relating something in alively and jovial tone, for the editor would every now and thenburst out in a discreet laugh, while Kotlicki would contort into asmile, his long equine face, and gather about him his coat-tails. All that was known about him was that he was rich and ennuied. 

Kotlicki listened patiently enough, but, at last, bending towardCabinska, he asked in a wooden, expressionless voice, "When does theculminating act of to-day's performance begin--the supper?"

"Immediately . . . We are waiting only for the owner of the house toarrive. "

"No doubt the rent for the last quarter must be unpaid, if you showher so much consideration, " he whispered ironically. 

"You always see everything in the worst light!" she answered, throwing a flower at him. 

"To-day I merely see that the directress is fascinating, thatMajkowska has the mien of a lioness, and that the lady who iswalking with her . . . But who is she?"

"A newly engaged chorus girl. "

"Well, I see that yonder aspirant to the dramatic art is beautifulby virtue of her originality and alone possesses more distinctionthan all the rest of them taken together. Furthermore, I see thatMimi to-day resembles a freshly baked roll, white and round androsy; that Rosinska has the face of a black poodle who has falleninto a bin of flour and not yet succeeded in shaking it off, andthat her Sophie looks like a freshly washed and combed littlegreyhound. Kaczkowska looks like a frying pan covered with meltedbutter; Mrs. Piesh like a hen seeking her strayed chicks; and Mrs. Glas like a calf enveloped in a rainbow. Where the dickens did sheget all those colors she wears?"

"You are a merciless mocker!"

"You can make me relent, Directress, by hurrying the supper . . . "he answered and became silent. 

The directress began telling in detail about a new joke thatMajkowska had played on Topolski. Kotlicki, listening to it, frownedimpatiently. 

"It is too bad that there is not a law which would compel you ladiesto pierce your tongues instead of your ears, " he said derisively, enveloping himself in a cloud of cigar smoke and observing Janinawho was still promenading with Majkowska. 

Both beamed with satisfaction, realizing the attention theyattracted. Janina's eyes were joyous, and her crimson lips smiledcharmingly revealing her pearly teeth. 

Wladek was engaged in some lengthy conversation with his mother andalso followed Janina with his eyes. Meeting the glances of Kotlickihe turned away. 

Shortly they were joined by Sophie Rosinska, a fourteen-year oldtypical actor's child with the long, thin mouth of a greyhound, apale complexion, and the large eyes of a madonna. Her short, curledhair shook with every motion of her head and her thin, narrow lipsfairly bit with their spitefulness as she related something toMajkowska in her lively voice. 

"Sophie!" energetically called Mrs. Rosinska. 

Sophie left them and sat down beside her mother, gloomy and sulky. 

"I constantly keep telling you not to have anything to do withMajkowska!" whispered Rosinska, adjusting the curls on herdaughter's head. 

"Don't bother me with your nonsense. Mamma! . . . I'm sick and tiredof listening to it! I like Miss Mela because she isn't a scarecrowlike those others, " saucily prattled Sophie and smiled with childishnaivete at Niedzielska, who was looking at her. 

"Wait till we get home. I'll fix you!"

"All right, all right . . . We'll see about that, Mother!"

Mrs. Rosinska turned to Stanislawski, who sat beside her all thewhile and chatted without drinking anything. She began to makeremarks about Majkowska, with whom she was always on a war footing, for they had almost the same repertory and Majkowska had, inaddition, talent, youth, and beauty, none of which Rosinskapossessed. Rosinska hated all young women, for in each she now saw arival and a thief stealing her roles and her favor with the public. 

Lately she had become intimate with Stanislawski for she felt thatsomething similar was happening to him. He never spoke to her aboutit, nor ever complained, but now, when he bent toward her his thin, waxen face all seamed with wrinkles as fine as hairs, his yellowisheyes glowed gloomily. 

"Did you notice how Cabinska played to-day?" she asked him. 

"Did I notice?" answered Stanislawski, "I see that every day. I knowlong ago what they are . . . Long ago! What is Cabinskihimself? . . . A clown and tightrope walker who in our days wouldnot even have been permitted to play the part of a lackey! . . . AndWladek! he's an artist, is he? . . . A beast who makes a publichouse of the stage! . . . He plays only for his mistresses! Hisnoblemen are shoemakers and barbers, while his barbers andshoemakers are loafers from the water front . . . What do theyintroduce on the stage? . . . Hooligans, the street, slang andmud. . . . And what is Glas? . . . A drunkard in life, which is aminor consideration, but it is not permissible for a true artist towander about taverns with the most disgusting hoodlums; it is notpermissible for a true artist to introduce on the stage thehiccoughs of a drunkard and vulgar brutality. . . . TakeZiolkowski's The Master and the Apprentice for instance: there youhave a type, a finished type of a drunkard presented in broad andclassical outlines; there is gesture and pose and mimicry, but thereis also nobility. What does Glas make of that role? . . . He makes afilthy, repulsive, drunken shoemaker of the lowest order. That istheir art! . . . And Piesh? . . . Piesh is also not much better, although he bears the stamp of a good artist . . . But his acting isa miserable and an everlasting botch; he has a humor on the stage, like that of fighting dogs, but not human and noble . . . And notours! . . . "

He became silent a moment and rubbed his eyes with his long skinnyhand with thin, knotty fingers. 

"And Krzykiewicz? . . . And Wawrzecki? . . . And Razowiec? . . . Perhaps they are artists, eh? . . . Artists! . . . Do you rememberKalacinski? . . . He was an artist! Or Krzensinski, Stobinski, Felek, and Chelchowski? . . . Those were artists who could bringdown the house! . . . What are our actors compared with them? . . . "he asked encompassing with an inimical glance the company aboutthem. "What is this band of shoemakers, tailors, paper hangers, barbers? . . . Comedians, ragamuffins, and clowns! . . . Bah! art isgoing to the dogs. In a few more years when we are gone, they willmake of the stage a barroom, a circus, or a storage warehouse. 

"Do you hear? . . . They give me half-sheet roles of old men and oldnincompoops, to me! . . . Do you hear? . . . To me, who for fortyyears have upheld the entire classical repertory to me! Oh! oh!" hehissed quietly tearing his finger nails convulsively. 

"Topolski! . . . Topolski alone has a talent, but what does he dowith it? . . . A bandit, a Singalese, who goes into epileptic fitson the stage, who is ready to put a barn on the stage if those newauthors require it. They call that realism, while in truth it isnothing but roguery! . . . "

"And the women? . . . You forget the women, sir! . . . Who plays theparts of sweethearts and heroines? . . . Who is in the chorus? . . . Scrub-women and barmaids, who have made of the theater a screen fortheir licentiousness. But that's nothing . . . The directors wantthat; what do they care if these women possess neither talent, intelligence nor beauty! . . . They give them the most importantroles. They act the parts of heroines and look like chambermaids orlike those who walk the streets! . . . But what do the directorscare as long as the business keeps going and the box office is soldout . . . That's all they care about!" She spoke rapidly and theblood rushed to her face so violently that she became all red, inspite of the thick layer of powder and cream. 

The stage-director, who was once the celebrated hero of a fewtheaters, and old Mirowska who was still retained only as a favorbecause of her old age and brilliant past completed the camp of theveterans of the old actors' guard, who had fought in other times, and looked upon the present with gloomy eyes. They stood beneath thebridge of a sinking ship, hence no one even heard their cries ofdespair. 

Kotlicki beckoned to Wladek and made room for him beside himself. 

Wladek in passing Janina cast a glance of fiery passion at her, andthen sat down near Kotlicki, rubbing his knee which bothered himwhenever he sat for any length of time. 

"Rheumatism is already there, eh? . . . While fame and money arestill far away! . . . " Kotlicki began mockingly. 

"Oh, the deuce take fame! . . . Money I wouldn't mind having . . . "

"Do you think you will ever get it?"

"I will . . . My faith in that is unfailing! At times it seems to meas though I already felt it in my pocket. "

"That's true. Your mother owns a house. "

"And six children and a pile of debts as high as the chimney! . . . No, not that! . . . I will get the money elsewhere . . . "

"In the meanwhile, according to your old custom you borrow itwherever you can, eh?" Kotlicki mocked on. 

"Oh, don't fear. I'll return yours this month yet, without fail. "

"I will wait even until the reappearance of the comet of 1812; itwill pass this way again in about a year. . . . "

"Don't mock me. . . . You'd not hurt people as much with a club asyou do with your cynicism. "

"That's my weapon!" answered Kotlicki, contracting his brows. 

"Perhaps, before long, I shall marry and then I will pay up all mydebts. . . . "

Kotlicki turned violently towards him, glanced straight into hiseyes and began to laugh with his quiet, neighing voice, screwing hisface into a grimace. 

"That is the finest piece of invention that I have ever heard!"

"No, I seriously intend to marry and have already selectedsomething: a brownstone house and a girl of twenty, a light blonde, plump, graceful and resolute. . . . If my mother helps me, I shallmarry before this season is over. "

"And what of the theater?"

"I will organize a company of my own. "

Kotlicki laughed again. 

"Your mother is too sensible and I am sure that she will not letherself be caught on that hook, my dear! . . . Why are you oglingthat beauty in the cream-colored dress so persistently, eh?"

"Oh she's a cocoanut of a woman!"

"Yes, but that cocoanut is too hard for your weak teeth. You won'tcrack it, and you're likely to lose a tooth in trying. . . . "

"Do you know what the savages do? . . . When they haven't a knife ora stone handy, they light a fire, put the cocoanut in it, and theheat bursts it open . . . "

"And when there is no fire to be had, what then? . . . You don'tanswer me, my clever chap? . . . Then I'll tell you: when there isno fire to be had, they content themselves with gazing on thecocoanut, consoling themselves with the thought that someone elsewill show them how to do it. "

Their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the owner ofthe house. A confused murmur arose from those assembled. Cabinskawent forward to greet her with extended hand and the mien ofresplendent majesty. 

"It is a pleasure to meet you! . . A real pleasure!" she announcedwith a faint smile, condescendingly extending her hand to thepersons whom Cabinska introduced to her. She sought to appear coldlyindifferent, while in reality she had been dying from curiosity eversince the morning to view these noted women about whom she had heardso much. 

Cabinski approached her smiling, with wine and cakes in his hand, but Pepa was already inviting all to sit down to supper. 

The landlady excused herself for being late, but her thin voice wasdrowned amid the hubbub of the guests seating themselves at thetable. She was given an honorary place between Pepa, Majkowska, andthe editor. Kotlicki seated himself at the end of the tablealongside of Janina, while Wladek wedged himself in between Janinaand Zielinska. 

After a toast pronounced by the editor in honor of the celebrant, conversation burst forth like a cascade and with unrestrained flowfilled the entire room. All began to talk at the same time, to laughand to joke. Inebriation began to envelop all brains in a rosy mistof merriment and to weave joy around all hearts. 

In the middle of the supper the doorbell rang violently. 

"Who can that be?" asked Cabinska. "Nurse, go and open the door!"

The nurse was busy about a side table where the children wereeating; she went immediately to open the door. 

"Who came?" inquired Cabinska. 

"Oh, nobody! Only that unchristened little goldfish!" she answeredscornfully. 

Those sitting nearest burst out laughing. 

"Ah, yes. Our dear and invaluable Gold!"

Gold entered and bowed to the company, tugging at his sparse, yellowlittle beard. 

"How are you, goldfish?"

"Hey there, Treasurer! Oh pearl of treasurers, come over to us. "

The treasurer bowed, paying no attention to the jibes that werehurled at him. 

"Mrs. Directress will pardon me for coming late, but my family livesin the Jewish quarter and I really had to stay with them till theend of the Sabbath, " he explained to Cabinska. 

"Have a seat, sir. If you can't eat, you're at least allowed todrink, " invited Cabinski, making room for Gold alongside himself. 

Gold located himself carefully and began to eat. When the companyhad forgotten him a bit, he ventured to address them:

"I have brought you the latest news, for I see no one knows it, asyet. . . . "

He took a newspaper from his side pocket and began to read aloud:"Miss Snilowska, the noted and talented artist of the provincialtheaters, playing under the pseudonym of 'Nicolette' has receivedpermission to make her debut in the Warsaw Theater. She will makeher first appearance next Tuesday in Sardou's Odette. We hope thatthe management, in engaging Miss Snilowska, has added a veryvaluable acquisition to the stage. "

He folded away the paper and calmly continued to eat. The companywas struck dumb with amazement. 

"Nicolette on the Warsaw stage! . . . Nicolette making herdebut! . . . Nicolette! . . . " they whispered with subdued voices. 

Everybody began to look at Majkowska and Pepa, but both were silent. 

Majkowska's face wore a scornful expression while Pepa, unable toconceal the anger that raged within her, tore distractedly at thelace on her sleeves. 

"No doubt she is now blessing that intrigue that caused her to leaveus, for it helped instead of harming her, " said someone. 

"Or else it was her talent that helped her!" intentionally addedKotlicki. 

"Talent?" cried Cabinska, "Nicolette and talent! Ha! ha! ha! Why shecould not even play a chambermaid on our stage!"

"Nevertheless in the Warsaw Theater she will play the second-bestroles, " interposed Kotlicki. 

"The Warsaw Theater! The Warsaw Theater! That is a still poorer showthan ours!" added Glas. 

"Ho! ho! what do the Warsaw Theater and its actors amount to! . . . Nothing great, to be sure!" shouted Krzykiewicz, all flushed withdrinking as he filled the landlady's glass with wine. 

"Only pay us such salaries as their actors get, and you will see whowe are!" called Piesh. 

"That's true! Piesh is right. Who can think only of art when hisrent is in arrears?"

"That's a falsehood! That would mean that you could make an artistof any swineherd whom you fed, " called Stanislawski across thetable. 

"Poverty is a fire that burns rubbish, but the true metal only comesout of it all the purer, " quickly said Topolski. 

"Nonsense! It comes out not purer, but only more sooty, andafterwards the rust devours it all the more quickly. A bottle isworth something not because it may have once contained the choicestTokay, but because it's now full of brandy!" stammered Glas in adrunken voice. 

"The Warsaw Theater! My God! with the exception of two or threepersons it's full of the scum of the profession which the provincesno longer could stand. "

"Just let the press give us the support it gives them, let it inserthalf a column daily about us and round up the public for us each dayas it does for them! . . . "

"Well, what then? . . . Even at that you'd remain nothing butWawrzecki!" sneered Kotlicki. 

"Yes, but the public would come and see that Wawrzecki is not a bitworse and perhaps a great deal better actor than those patentedcelebrities. "

"Let me speak!" whimpered Glas, vainly trying to rise from his chairand steady himself. 

"The public! . . . The public is a flock of sheep which runs whereit is driven by the shepherds. "

"Don't say that, Topolski . . . "

"Don't try to deny it, Kotlicki! I tell you that the public is apack of fools, but its leaders are even greater fools!"

"Let me speak, " mumbled Glas in a voice that was already growinginaudible, while he leaned on the table and gazed at the candleswith hazy eyes. 

"Glas, go to sleep, for you're drunk, " said Topolski sharply. 

"I am drunk? . . . I am drunk? . . . " stuttered Glas, his face asruddy as the dawn. 

The wine and liquors circulated more freely, and the guests beganshifting their seats. 

Wladek seated himself between Majkowska and the landlady, embarkingon a flirtation with the latter. Mimi, growing exhilarated, approached Kaczkowska, with whom she had already exchanged glancesand friendly words across the table. They now sat close together, holding each other about the waist like the sincerest friends. 

Janina, who had been answering Kotlicki only in brief sentences, preoccupied with what she saw and heard about her glanced at himwith an amazed and questioning look. 

"You are surprised?" he asked. 

"Yes, for not so long ago they were so angry at one another. "

"Bosh! that was only a little comedy, played fairly well in theirmomentary mood . . . "

"A comedy? . . . And I thought that . . . "

"That they would begin to pull each other's hair, no doubt . . . Foreven that sometimes happens behind the stage between the best offriends and actors. From what planet have you dropped down thatthese people surprise you so greatly? . . . "

"I came from the country where one hears hardly anything aboutartists, only about the theater itself, " she answered straightforwardly. 

"Ah, in that case, I beg your pardon. . . . Now I understand youramazement and I will presume to enlighten you that all thosequarrels, rumpuses, intrigues, envies, and even fights are nothingbut nerves, nerves, nerves! They vibrate in all of these people atthe slightest touch, like the strings of an old piano. Their tears, their angers, and their hatreds are all momentary, and their loveslast about a week, at the longest. It is the comedy of life ofnervous individuals, acted a hundredfold better than that which theypresent on the stage, for it is played instinctively. I mightdescribe it thus: all women in the theater are hysterical, and themen, whether great or small, are neurasthenics. Here you will findeverything but real human beings. Have you been long in thetheater?"

"This is my first month. "

"No wonder that everything amazes you; but in a month or so you'llno longer see anything surprising; everything will then appear toyou natural and commonplace. "

"In other words, you infer that I also will become a subject tohysteria, " she gaily added. 

"Yes. I give you my word that I am speaking with absolute sincerity. You think you can live with impunity in this environment withoutbecoming like all the rest of them; while I tell you that that is anatural necessity. Suppose we expatiate on that a bit . . . Will youallow me?"

"Certainly. "

"In the country you must know the woods. . . . Now please recall toyour mind the woodsmen. Have they not in themselves something ofthat wood which they are continually chopping? They become stiff andstalwart, gloomy and indifferent. And what of the butcher? Does nota man who is continually occupied in killing, who breathes in theodor of raw meat and steaming blood, in time become stamped with thesame characteristics as those beasts which he has slain? He does, and I would say that he is himself a beast. And what of the peasant?Do you know the village well?"

Janina nodded. 

"Imagine for a moment the green fields in springtime, golden in thesummer, russet-gray and mournful in the autumn, white and hard likea desert in the winter. Now behold the peasant as he is from hisbirth until his death . . . The average, normal peasant. The peasantboy is like a wild, unbridled colt, like the irresistible urge ofthe spring. In the prime of his manhood he is like the summer, aphysical potentate, hard as the earth baked by the July sun, gray ashis fallows and pastures, slow as the ripening of the grain. Autumncorresponds entirely to the old age of the peasant that desperate, ugly old age with its bleared eyes and earthy complexion, like theground beneath the plow; it lacks strength and goes about inbeggars' garments like the earth that has been reft of the bulk ofits fruits with only a few dried and yellow stalks sticking out hereand there in the potato fields; the peasant is already slowlyreturning to the earth from whence he sprung, the earth which itselfbecomes dumb and silent after the harvest and lies there in the paleautumn sunlight, quiet, passive, and drowsy. . . . Afterwards comeswinter: the peasant in his white coffin, in his new boots and cleanshirt, lies down to rest in that earth which has, like him, arrayeditself in a white shroud of snow and fallen to sleep that earthwhose life he was a part of, which he unconsciously loved, and withwhich he dies together, as cold and hard as those ice-coveredfurrows that nourished him. . . . "

Kotlicki meditated a moment and then continued: "And yet you thinkthat you can remain in the theater without becoming a hystericaltype? That's impossible! This phantom life, this daily portrayal ofnew characters, feelings and thoughts upon that shifting plane ofimpressions, amid artificial stimulants this must metamorphose everyhuman being, demolish his former personality and recast or ratherdisintegrate his soul so that you can put almost any stamp upon it. You must become a chameleon; on the stage, for art's sake, in life, from necessity. "

"In other words, one must degenerate to become an artist, " addedJanina. 

"Well, what of that? . . . Even though you fall, others will surelyreach the goal and convince themselves that it wasn't worth reachingthat it isn't worth striving for, nor shedding a single tear, norbearing a single pang . . . For everything is illusion, illusion, illusion . . . . "

They became silent. Janina felt a sudden chill depression. Thatformer fear of the unknown, experienced at Bukowiec, now tookpossession of her. 

Kotlicki leaned with one elbow on the table and looked absently intothe crystal carafes containing the arrack. He poured out and drankglass after glass. The conversation with Janina had wearied him; hecontinued to speak to her, but felt vexed at himself for having saidso much. His yellow face, covered with freckles and short reddishhair, hard and seamed with deep lines, resembled a horse's face asit was reflected in the red glass of the carafe. 

Gazing at Janina he saw so much strength and inner health, so manydesires, dreams, and hopes, that he muttered to himself in a hollow, dissatisfied tone: "What for? . . . What for? . . . "

Then he gulped down another glass of wine and became absorbed in thegeneral conversation. Voices sounded harshly, faces were red, andeyes glowed through a mist of alcoholic intoxication, while manylips were already mumbling indistinctly and incoherently. All weretalking at once, arguing heatedly and quarreling volubly, unceremoniously swearing, shouting or laughing. 

The candles, almost burnt out, were replaced by new ones. Gray dawn, filtering in through the reed shades in thin streaks, dimmed theglare of the lights. 

The guests rose from the table and scattered about the adjoiningrooms. Cabinska, followed by a few ladies, repaired to the boudoirfor tea. In the first room a few tables were arranged and a game ofcards commenced. 

Only Gold still sat at the festal board and ate, relating somethingto Glas, who was now quite drunk. 

"They are poor people. . . . My sister is a widow with six children;I help her as much as I can, but that doesn't amount to much. . . . And, in the meanwhile, the children are growing up and need evermore . . . " Gold was saying. 

"Then cheat us more, you dog's face! . . . "

"The elder is about to take up a medical course, the next in age isa store clerk and the rest of them are such small and weak andsickly tots that it pains one to look at them!"

"Then drown them, like puppies! . . . Drown them and be done withit!" mumbled Glas. 

"You are very drunk . . . " whispered Gold scornfully, "you have noidea what children are! . . . "

"Get married and you'll have kids of your own . . . " stuttered Glas. 

"I can't . . . I must first see that these are provided for, "replied Gold quietly grasping a cup of tea in both hands and sippingit in little gulps, "I must first make men of them . . . " he added, his eyes glowing. 

All around there was a hum of voices as in a beehive when the swarmof young bees is ready to fly out into the world. The hiddendesires, envies, feuds, and troubles broke out irresistibly. Thetalking grew louder, people were denounced without pardon, slanderedwithout mercy, reviled and derided without pity. Those assembledthere had now become their natural selves: no one masked himself anylonger nor confined himself within the bounds of one role. Allplayed a thousand different roles. The hidden comedy of souls nowfound its stage, its audience, and its actors, often very talentedones. 

Janina exhilarated by the wine, conversed with Wawrzecki about thetheater. Afterwards she strayed about the rooms, watched the menplaying cards, and listened to a variety of conversations andarguments. 

Janina roused herself from her meditations, for Kotlicki stoodbefore her with a cup of tea in his hand and with his sharp ennuiedvoice began to speak: "You are observing the company, mademoiselle?Truly, what remarkable energy there is in all their actions, whatstrong souls they now appear to be!"

"Your malice also has strength . . . " she replied slowly. 

"And is wasted on slander and ridicule, you wished to add, didn'tyou?"

"Almost so. "

"We shall see, we shall see . . . " he said slowly, standing his cupupon the table and then, taking leave of Janina he left quietly. 

In the anteroom where the sleepy Wicek handed him his overcoat, heheard the monotonous whispering of the children's voices behind thescreen. He raised the curtain and saw Cabinski's four little boyskneeling in their nightgowns and repeating their prayers after thenurse. 

A small night-lamp, glowing before a holy picture above the nurse'sbed, faintly illumined that group of children and the old, gray-haired woman, who humbly bowed to the ground, struck her breastwith her hand and whispered in a tearful voice: "O Lamb of God, whopurgest the sins of the world!"

The children repeated the words after her with drowsy voices andbeat their breasts with their little hands. 

Kotlicki withdrew quietly and without a smile. Only when he hadreached the stairs, he whispered: "Well, well! We shall see, weshall see. . . . "

Janina started for the boudoir, but Niedzielska stopped her and drewher into a conversation; later Wladek joined them. 

The company began to break up. 

"Do you live far away?" Niedzielska asked Janina. 

"On Podwal Street, but in a week at most I am moving to WidokStreet. "

"Ah, that's good, for we live on Piwna Street, so we can gotogether. . . . "

They left immediately. Niedzielska took Janina by the arm, whileWladek walked alongside, a little angry because he had to accompanyhis mother; he swore to himself, while aloud he made melancholyremarks about the weather. 

The streets were deserted and silent. Dawn was already illuminingthe dark depths of the horizon and the outlines of the houses becamedistinct. The gas lamps extended like an endless golden chain withtheir links of pale flames diffusing a mist of light upon the dewcovered sidewalks and the gray walls of the houses. The fresh briskbreeze of a July morning swept down the streets with a strange charmand tranquility. The houses stood silent, still wrapt in slumber. 

Arrived at her hotel Niedzielska kissed Janina with a suddenfriendliness and they parted. 

CHAPTER VI

"Will you find it comfortable here?"

"I think so. It is quiet and light. . . . Who lived here before me?"

"Miss Nicolette. She is now at the Warsaw Theater . . . That's agood omen. "

"No, not entirely. They are likely not to engage her. . . . "

"Oh, they'll engage her all right. . . . Miss Zarnecka is clever, "said Mme. Anna, the daughter of Sowinska into whose home Janina hadjust moved. 

She was twenty-four years old, neither homely nor pretty with anindefinite color of hair and eyes, but with a very definiteslenderness and bad temper. 

She conducted a dressmaking establishment under the name of Mme. Anna and although she made her living on actresses and very oftenreceived free tickets to the theater, she never went there and hatedartists. There were often scenes over this with her mother, but oldSowinska, would not so much as listen to any suggestion that sheshould abandon the theater. She had become so deeply rooted therethat she could not tear herself away, although Mme. Anna would turnalmost yellow from shame over the fact that her mother was atheatrical seamstress. She was disgustingly stingy, ignorant, pitiless, and jealous. 

Mme. Anna examined Janina's wardrobe with ill-concealed malice. 

"All that will have to be made over, for it smells of the country, "she decreed. 

Janina began to protest a little, maintaining that the same stylescould often be seen in the streets. 

"Yes, but who wears them, please take notice of that: shop women orshoemakers' wives; a self-respecting woman will not wear such rags!"Mme. Anna scornfully persisted. 

"Well then, have them made over. I can pay you immediately for thework and also a full month's rent in advance. "

"Oh, there's no hurry. You'll need to buy a few costumes. "

"I'll have enough left for that. "

Janina paid thirty rubles for her room. 

"I am already settled for good, " she later said to the old woman whodropped in to see her. 

"Bosh, it won't be for long! In two months you'll be moving again. An actor's life is a gypsy life, from wagon to wagon, from town totown. . . . "

"Perhaps at some time I'll be able to settle down permanently, " saidJanina. 

Sowinska smiled gloomily. "That is the way one thinks in thebeginning, but afterwards . . . Afterwards it ends in eternalwandering. . . . You become worn-out like a rag and die on a hotelbed. "

"Not all end in that way, " answered Janina gaily, paying littleattention. 

"What are you laughing at? . . . It's not at all funny!" criedSowinska. 

"Am I laughing? . . . I merely said that not all end in that way. "

"All ought to end in that way, every one of them!" Sowinska shoutedangrily and left. 

Janina could not understand either her violent anger, or her lastwords. 

The days sped on. Janina absorbed the theater into herself ever moredeeply. She attended the rehearsals regularly, afterwards went togive lessons for two hours to Cabinska's daughter, and later wouldgo home for dinner, prepare her wardrobe for the performance, and atabout eight in the evening start off again for the theater. 

On the days when no operettas were played and the choruses werefree, she went to the Summer Theater and there, squeezed high up inthe gallery, spent entire evenings dreaming. She devoured with hereyes the actresses, their gestures, costumes, mimicry, and voices. She followed the action of the plays so closely that later she couldre-create them in her mind with detailed accuracy and often, afterreturning from the theater, she would light the candles, standbefore the large mirror, and repeat the acting which she had seen, observing intently every quiver of her facial expression and tryingout every conceivable pose. But she was seldom satisfied withherself. 

The plays which she saw left her cold and bored. She was not stirredby the bourgeois dramas with their eternal conventional conflictsand flirtations. She repeated the banal lines of these playsapathetically and in the midst of some scene would stop and go tobed. 

She asked Cabinski to give her a role in the cast of a new play, buthe put her off with nothing. 

"I am keeping you in mind, but first you must familiarize yourselfwith the stage. . . . When we present some melodrama or folk playyou will get a bigger role . . . " was all he said. 

In the meanwhile they were playing only operettas, for they filledthe theater. 

Janina smiled in reply to Cabinski's vague promises, although tornby impatience. But she had already learned to control her feelingsand to wear a mask of smiling indifference. She consoled herselfwith the thought that sooner or later she would have done with thechorus and that the moment must at last arrive when she would appearin a real role. 

She had already become saturated with the atmosphere in which shelived. And that public, so strange and capricious, which someaccused of ignorance, of a total lack of taste and higher desires, and others of indifference, but to which all paid homage and beforewhich they all cringed and trembled, begging its favors that publiceven filled Janina with anger. There was something strange in herattitude. She would dress very fastidiously for the stage, merelyfor the purpose of attracting attention to herself; she would adoptthe most graceful poses, but whenever she felt the gaze of themultitude it would send a depressing shudder through her. 

"Shoemakers!" she would whisper scornfully, thereafter remaining inthe shadow. 

In the dressing-room chorus girls passively submitted to Janina, forthey feared her, knowing that she had intimate and continualrelations with the management. They were likewise impressed by thefact that Wladek followed her continually and that Kotlicki, whoformerly used to come behind the scenes only occasionally, now satthere daily throughout the whole performance and conversed withJanina with his hat off. She was surrounded by a sort of invisibleaura of unconscious respect, for although many surmises were madeabout her on account of Kotlicki, no one ever dared insinuateanything to her face. 

At first, Janina inclined toward the leading actresses of thecompany and wanted to enter upon a more intimate acquaintance withthem, but they discouraged her, for whenever she began to speak tothem about the theater or about art, they would become silent, orelse commence to tell her about their own triumphs. 

Stanislawski and the stage-director were Janina's sincere friends. Many times during the rehearsals they would go upstairs to thedeserted dressing-rooms or to the storeroom under the stage, andthere tell stories of the theater and the actors of their day anepoch that was already dead. They would conjure up before her eyesgreat figures, great souls, and great passions almost like those shehad dreamed of. 

How much advice they gave her concerning enunciations, classicalpose, and the best manner of reciting her lines! She listened withinterest, but when she tried to play the fragment of some roleaccording to their instructions, she found she could not do it, andthey would then appear so stiff, pathetic and unnatural that shebegan to treat them with an indulgent pity. 

With Mme. Anna, Janina lived on a footing of cool politeness. WithSowinska she was a little more intimate, for the old woman fawnedupon her as a tenant who regularly paid her rent in advance. Sowinska was coarse and violent. There were certain days that shewould eat nothing, nor even go to the theater, but would sit lockedin her room, crying, or at moments swearing extraordinarily. 

After such days she seemed even more energetic and would indulgewith greater zest in behind-the-stage intrigues. She would walkamong the audience and speak quietly with the young men who hungabout the theater. She would bring the actresses invitations tosuppers, bouquets, candy, and letters and would seek with a genuinezeal to induce the stubborn ones to yield to the advances made tothem. She accompanied the girls as a chaperon to carousals and knewjust when to find an important reason for leaving. At such timesthere would gleam under her mask of kindhearted and wrinkled old agean expression of cruel glee. 

Janina overheard once how the old woman spoke to Shepska, who hadjoined the theater after being seduced by a member of the chorus. 

"Listen to me, madame! . . . What does your lover give you? A homeon Brewery Street and sardines with tea for breakfast, dinner andsupper. . . . It's a shame to waste yourself on such a poor fool!Don't you know that you could live as comfortably as you wish andlaugh at Cabinski! Why should you have scruples! . . . A personprofits by life only as he enjoys it! . . . A young and pretty girlought not waste herself on a penniless nobody. . . . Perhaps youthink you will the sooner get a role by remaining where youare? . . . Oho! when pears grow on a pine tree! Only those are givenroles who have someone backing them. "

Usually she accomplished her purpose, and though often offeredcostly presents, seldom accepted anything. 

"I don't want them. If I advise anyone, it's because I wish themwell, " she would answer briefly. 

Janina who had learned enough of the more intimate phases of lifebehind the scenes, regarded Sowinska with a certain awe. She knewthat it was not for gain that the old woman shoved the younger onesinto the mire of degradation, but for some hidden reason. At times, she feared her, unable to endure the enigmatic look with whichSowinska scrutinized her face. She felt instinctively that Sowinskaseemed to be waiting for something or watching for some opportunity. 

On one of those lachrymose days of Sowinska's Janina, who was juststarting for the theater, dropped in to see her. 

Entering the room she stood amazed. Sowinska was kneeling beside anopen trunk, while on the bed, the table and the chairs were spreadthe parts of some theatrical costume and on the floor were lyingstacks of faded copies of roles. Sowinska was holding in her handthe photograph of a young man with a strange face, long and so thinthat all the cheek bones could be seen distinctly protruding throughthe skin. He had an abnormally high forehead with wide temples and ahuge head. Large eyes gazed out of the pale face like the sunkenhollows in a dead man's skull. 

Sowinska turned to the girl with the photograph in her hands and ina voice trembling with anguish, whispered: "Look, this is myson . . . And these are my sacred relics!"

"Was he an artist?"

"An artist? . . . I should say so, but not like those monkeys ofCabinski's. How he played! The papers wrote about him. He was inPlock and I went to see him. When he appeared in The Robbers thewhole theater shook with applause and cries of admiration. I satbehind the scenes and when I heard his voice and saw him I was soovercome with emotion that I thought I would die for very joy!

"I loved him so dearly that I would have let myself be torn toshreds for him! . . . He was an artist, an artist! He never owned apenny and poverty often devoured him like a dog, but I tried to helphim as much as I could. I slaved for him and lived on nothing buttea and bread to save something for him. "

She ceased speaking while tears flowed softly down her faded, paleface. 

Janina, after a long silence, asked quietly: "Where is your sonnow?"

"Where?" she answered, rising from the floor. "Where? . . . He isdead! He shot himself. "

She began to breathe heavily. 

"My whole life has been like that!" she began again. "His father wasa tailor and I kept a shop. In the beginning all went well for wehad plenty of money and a decent home. My husband worked for acircus and shortly a performer caught his eye and he followed herinto the world when the circus moved on. "

She sighed heavily. 

"I merely set my teeth tightly together. I toiled like a galleyslave to gain a mere living for myself and daughter, but I wasstricken by an epidemic. When I came out of it, everything went tothe dogs, for my shop was sold to cover my debts. I was practicallyturned out into the street without a penny. An unspeakable rageseized me. I borrowed money wherever I could and together with mychild went to seek my husband. I found him living with a shopkeeperin such comfort that he had forgotten all about us. I took him bythe neck and brought him back with us to Warsaw. . . . He staid withme a whole year, bestowed another child upon me, and ran away again. My daughter grew up, we took home sewing, and managed to make aliving somehow. 

"Then after some years they brought back my husband stone-blind. Igave him a nook in my home, for my children desired it. God was atleast merciful enough to take him away. 

"Later, I married off my daughter to a peasant. One day about twoyears ago, I was present at my daughter's name day party to which afew relatives and friends had been invited. In the midst of it theybrought me a telegram from Suwalki asking me to come immediately, for my son was very ill. "

She paused for a moment, gazed blankly about the room and in a lowvoice, filled with despair whispered on, lifting her pale face toJanina's:

"He was already dead. . . . They were waiting for me to buryhim. . . . "

"Later they told me that he had fallen in love with a chorus girland killed himself for her! They showed her to me. She was thevilest sort. And that was why he killed himself . . . . 

"When I caught her in the street, I would have killed her, killedher like a mad dog to avenge my wrong and anguish! . . . " Sowinskashouted aloud, clenching her fists. 

"Such is my life, such! I curse it every day, but cannotforget . . . All that still burns here in my bosom . . . I am in thetheater, for it always seems to me that he will return, that he isalready dressing and will immediately appear on the stage . . . "

"My God, God! . . . Ah, it was not he that was to blame, butshe . . . You girls tear to pieces a mother's heart . . . I wouldtrample you all underfoot like so many worms, into the mud, intopoverty, so that you might agonize as I do . . . So that you mightsuffer, suffer, suffer. . . . "

She ceased, breathing heavily. Her yellow waxen face glared withwild hatred. Her wrinkles twitched and her pale bitten lips seethed. 

Janina had been standing all the while eagerly absorbing her everyword and gesture. The overwhelming reality of Sowinska's grief, sosimple and strong, had called forth a responsive chord in her ownheart. 

She was standing in the street, wondering where she should go, whena voice behind her said: "Good morning, Miss Orlowska!"

She turned about quickly. Mrs. Niedzielska, Wladek's mother, wasstanding before her with a smile on her aged, simple face. 

Janina greeted her hastily. 

"I was about to take a walk, " she said. 

"Perhaps you will drop into my house for a minute? . . . " beggedNiedzielska quietly. "I am so much alone that often for whole days Idon't see anyone except Anna and the janitor. "

She hobbled slowly along. 

"Certainly, I still have a little time before the performance, "answered Janina. 

"You're not in the theater very long, are you?"

"Only three weeks. "

"I could tell that right away!"

"How?"

"I can't exactly explain. I watched you at Cabinska's party andimmediately knew that you were a newcomer. I even mentioned it toWladek . . . "

"Please make yourself at home. . . . I'll be with you in a minute. "Niedzielska played hostess quite grandly, once they were arrived ather home. 

Janina, left alone, observed with curiosity the old-fashionedmahogany table covered with an embroidered net doily which stoodbefore a huge lounge upholstered with black horsehair; the chairs, upholstered with the same material, had lyre-shaped backs. A yellowpolished dresser was filled with grotesque porcelain, greenishpitchers, colored bric-a-brac, wineglasses with monograms, andflower-painted teacups standing on high legs. A clock under a bellglass, old, faded steel engravings of the Empire period, a lamp witha green shade on a separate table, a few pots with miserable flowerson the window sill and two cages with canaries constituted theentire furnishings. 

"Let us have a drink of coffee . . . " said Niedzielska, reentering. 

She took from the dresser two showy cups and placed them on thetable. Then she went to the kitchen and brought in the coffee, already poured into two chipped bowls, and a plate with a few stalecakes. 

"O goodness, I forgot that I had already set the cups on thetable . . . Well, it doesn't matter. We can drink the coffee just aswell out of these, can't we? . . . " she said, at once adding, "dearme, I forgot the sugar! Do you like your coffee sweet, mademoiselle?"

The old woman left the room and through the door Janina could hearher taking sugar out of a glass bowl. She brought in on a littlesaucer two lumps. 

"Please have some in your coffee. . . . You see at my age I can'thave anything sweet, " she said, drinking audibly. 

Finally, after perhaps half an hour, in which her hostess chatteredinterminably and Janina listened with increasing weariness, the girlgot up to go, and at the very door she met Wladek. 

"Visiting my mother!" he exclaimed. 

"Certainly. There's nothing wrong in that, " she answered, smiling athis confusion. 

"Heavens! No doubt she's been telling you what a scoundrel I am. Ibeg your pardon for having had to listen. "

"Oh, it didn't offend me in the least. "

"It only made you laugh, I know. The whole theater is laughing at myexpense, for all the ladies have already been here. "

"Your mother loves you, " Janina spoke seriously. 

"That love is beginning to choke me like a bone in my throat!" heanswered sourly and wanted to add something else, but Janina bowedsilently and passed on. 

Wladek did not have the courage to follow her and went upstairs. 

"What is happening in my own home?" she thought as she walked towardthe theater. "What is my father doing? . . . "

And she suddenly felt within herself a glimmer of sympathy for thattyrant. She saw now how lonely he must be among strangers whoridiculed his eccentricities. 

During the whole performance, the vision of her father constantlyrecurred in her memory. She asked herself what it was that had madehim so cruel, and why he hated her?

Kotlicki brought her a bouquet of roses. She received it coolly, without even glancing at him. 

"I see that you are out of sorts to-day, " he said, taking her hand. 

She pulled it away. 

Majkowska, who was just then passing, whispered, pointing toRosinska: "What a scarecrow! What conventional acting! She isincapable of producing even a single accent of true feeling!"

Behind Janina some gentleman in a high hat was pressing the hands ofone of the chorus girls. 

"Things are turning out fine, for to-morrow, there will be norehearsal and we can go to Bielany in the afternoon. Wait for us atyour home, we will drop in and take you along with us, " whisperedMimi. 

"I also am going on that outing, " said Kotlicki, "you are going too, aren't you?"

"Probably . . . But if I couldn't go it would be just as great asuccess. "

"In that case I wouldn't go either. "

He bent so closely over Janina that she felt his breath upon herface. 

"I don't understand you, " she said, moving away from him. 

"I am going along only for your sake, " he whispered in a stillquieter tone. 

"For my sake? . . . " she queried, glancing at him sharply, andstirred by a sudden aversion. 

"Yes . . . Surely you must have guessed by now that I love you, "said Kotlicki, drawing together his lips which were trembling andlooking at her pleadingly. 

"There they say the same, only they play a little better!" sheremarked scornfully, pointing to the stage. 

Kotlicki drew himself erect, a sullen shadow passed over his equineface, his eyes gleaming threateningly. 

"I will convince you! . . . "

"Very well, but to-morrow at Bielany, not now, " Janina coollyextended her hand in farewell and left for the dressing-room. 

Kotlicki gazed after her covetously, biting his lips. 

"A comedienne!" he finally whispered, leaving the theater. 

CHAPTER VII

Janina awoke at about half-past ten in the morning. Sowinska had just brought in her breakfast. 

"Was anyone here to see me? . . . " she asked. 

Sowinska nodded her head and handed Janina a letter. 

"About an hour ago a ruddy fellow delivered it and asked me to giveit to you. "

Janina nervously tore open the envelope and immediately recognizedthe handwriting of Grzesikiewicz:

"My Dear Miss Orlowska, I have purposely come to Warsaw to see you on a very importantmatter. If you will kindly deign to be home at eleven o'clock Ishall be there at that hour. Please pardon my boldness. Allow me tokiss your hands and remain

Your humble servant, GRZESIKIEWICZ. "

"What's going to happen? . . . " thought Janina, dressing hastily. "What kind of important matter can it be that he writes of?Concerning my father? . . . Can it be that he is ill and longing forme? . . . Oh no! No!"

She quickly drank her tea, tidied her room and patiently awaitedGrzesikiewicz's visit. The thought of seeing, at last some one ofher own people from Bukowiec even filled her with a certain joy. 

"Perhaps he will propose to me again?" Janina thought to herself. And she saw his big weather-beaten face, bronzed by the sun, andthose blue eyes gazing so mildly from beneath his shock of flaxenhair. She remembered too, his embarrassed shyness. 

"A good, honest man!" she said to herself, walking up and down theroom; but then the thought occurred to her that his visit was likelyto spoil her intended trip to Bielany, and her enthusiasm began tocool. She determined she would speak to him briefly. 

"I wonder what he wants of me?" Janina asked herself uneasily, assuming the most impossible things. 

"My father must be very sick and wants me to come to him, " sheanswered herself. 

She stood in the center of the room almost dazed, with fear that shemust return to Bukowiec. 

"No, it is impossible! . . . I couldn't stand it there a singleweek . . . And moreover, he drove me away from home forever . . . "

A chaotic conflict between hate, sorrow, and a quiet, scarcelyperceptible feeling of homesickness began to rage in Janina's heart. 

The bell rang in the anteroom. 

Janina sat down and waited quietly. She heard the door opening, thevoices of Grzesikiewicz and Sowinska, and the sound of an overcoatbeing hung up. 

"May I come in?" asked a voice outside. 

"Please do, " she whispered, choking with trepidation as she arosefrom her chair. 

Grzesikiewicz entered. His face was even more sunburnt than usualand his blue eyes seemed bluer. He walked stiffly and erectly like apetrified block of meat squeezed into a tight surtout withdifficulty. He almost threw his hat upon a basket standing near thedoor and, kissing Janina's hand, said quickly: "Good morning . . . "

He straightened himself, scanned her face with his eyes and sat downheavily in a chair. 

"I had a hard time finding you . . . " he began, and suddenly brokeoff. Then, as if to bolster up his courage, he attempted to shoveaside a chair that interfered with his actions but pushed it so hardthat it fell over. 

He sprang up, all red in the face, and began to apologize. 

Janina smiled, so vividly did that impulsive action remind her oftheir last talk and that unfortunate proposal. And for a moment itseemed to her that it was now that he was to propose and that theywere sitting in the quiet parlor at Bukowiec. She could not explainto herself the impression that he made on her with that honest face, worn by suffering, and with those bright blue eyes which seemed tobring with them echoes of those beloved fields and woods, thosequiet glens, that golden sunlight and the free and bounteous life ofnature. For one fleeting moment her mind dwelt on all this, but atthe same time there awoke memories of all her sufferings and herbanishment. 

She handed him a box of cigarettes and said in an easy tone, breaking the somewhat prolonged silence: "You give proof of no smallcourage and . . . Kindness by visiting me after all that hashappened. . . . "

"Do you remember what I told you the last time, " he answered, subduing and softening his voice, "that I would never andalways! . . . That I would never cease and would always continue tolove you!"

Janina moved impatiently, for his deeply sincere accent pained her. 

"I beg your pardon . . . If it makes you angry, I will not sayanother word about myself . . . " he said with resignation. 

"What is the news from home?" she asked, raising her eyes to his. 

"How can I tell you? . . . It's something that beggars alldescription. You would not know your father; he has become animpossible autocrat in his official duties, and outside of them hegoes hunting, visits his neighbors, whistles to himself . . . Buthas become so thin and worn that it is hard to recognize him. Worryis eating him away like a canker. "

"Why? . . . What is there for my father to worry about?"

"My God! How can you ask such a question? Are you joking, or haven'tyou a spark of feeling in you? . . . Why is he worrying? . . . Because you are away . . . Because he, like all of us, is dyingwith longing for you! . . . "

"And what about Krenska? . . . " Janina asked with apparent calmness, although stirred deeply by what he had told her. 

"What has Krenska to do with this? . . . He threw her out the verynext day after your departure, afterwards received a few days'official leave from his duties and left Bukowiec. . . . In about aweek he returned so woebegone and haggard that we scarcelyrecognized him. Even strangers are crying over him, but you had nopity on him and went forth into the world . . . And what kind ofworld, besides? . . . "

Janina sprang up violently from her chair. 

"Yes, you may be angry with me if you will, but I love you, I loveyou too well, and we all love you too well to be denied the right tospeak what we feel. Have me thrown out of here if you will, and I'llnot complain, but I'll wait for you at the street door or meet youanywhere else and keep telling you that your father is dying withoutyou and that he is growing sicker and weaker every day! My mothercame across him not so long ago in the woods: he was lying in somebushes and crying like a child. You are killing him. Both of you arekilling each other with your pride and unrelenting stubbornness. Youare the best woman in the world and I feel that you will not leavehim alone, that you will return and give up theatrical life. . . . Aren't you ashamed of associating with such a band of scoundrels? . . . How can you possibly exhibit yourself on the stage! . . . "

He broke off and breathing heavily, wiped his eyes with hishandkerchief. Never before had he said so much at one time. 

Janina sat with bowed head, her face as pale as a sheet, her lipsset tightly and her heart filled with a storm of rebellion andsuffering. That sharp voice which she had just heard had in it sucha tearful, deep and soul-stirring expression and those words: "Yourfather is suffering . . . Your father is crying . . . Your father islonging for you!" penetrated her with so sharp a grief and harriedher so painfully, that at moments she wanted to spring up and go tohim as quickly as she could; but then again, memories of the pastwould flood her brain and she would become cool and hardened. Finally she recalled the theater and became entirely indifferent. 

"No! He has driven me away forever. . . . I am alone in the worldand will remain alone. I could not live without the theater!" Janinasaid to herself and there arose in her again that mad desire fortheatrical conquest. 

Grzesikiewicz also became silent, his eyes clouding mistily. Hedevoured her with his eyes, and had a great desire to fall on hisknees before her, kiss her hands and feet and the hem of her dressand beg her to listen to him . . . Then again, when he rememberedthe whole tragedy of the situation, he felt like springing up fromhis chair and smashing everything that came in his way; or againsuch a violent grief would convulse him that he could have criedaloud in sheer despair. 

He sat and gazed at that beloved face, now pale and worn, on whichthe feverish night life of the theater had already left its imprint, and he felt that he would give his very life for her, if she wouldonly go back. 

Janina finally bent on him eyes that were glowing with irrevocabledetermination. 

"You must know how my father hates me; you must also know that, whenI refused to marry you, he drove me out of his house forever . . . He almost cursed me and drove me out . . . " she repeated withbitterness. "I left because I had to, but I will never return. Iwill not exchange the freedom of the theater for slavery at home. Things happened as they did because they had to. My father told meat that time that he had no longer a daughter, and I now answer thatI have no longer a father. We have parted and will never be reunitedagain. I am entirely able to shift for myself, and art will sufficeme for everything. "

"So you will not return?" asked Grzesikiewicz, for that was all heunderstood of her words. 

"No! I have no home and I will not forsake the theater!" repliedJanina in a calm voice, regarding him coolly, but her pale lipstrembled a little and her bosom throbbed violently, convulsed by theconflict within. 

"You will kill him . . . He loves you so . . . He will not outlivesuch a blow . . . . " said Grzesikiewicz gently. 

"No, Andrew, my father does not love me. A person whom you love youdo not torment for whole years at a time and then drive away fromhome like the worst. . . . Even a dog does not turn its young onesout . . . Even an animal never does what was done to me!"

"I have seen and know how bitterly he regrets those reckless wordsand how hard it is for him to live without you. I swear that youwill make him happy by returning! That you will restore him tolife!"

"Did he tell you that he desired me to return to Bukowiec? Perhapshe has given you a letter for me? Please tell me the whole truth!"she spoke rapidly. 

Grzesikiewicz hesitated in confusion and became even sadder. 

"No. He neither said anything about it, nor gave me a letter foryou, " he answered, lowering his voice. 

"So that is how much he loves me and how greatly he longs to see me?Ha! ha! ha!" she laughed harshly. 

"Don't you know him yet? He will die of thirst rather than beg aglass of water. When I was leaving and told him where I was going, he did not say a word, but looked at me in such a way and gripped myhand so firmly that I understood him entirely. . . . "

"No, you did not understand him at all. My father is not at allconcerned about me; he is only concerned over the fact that thewhole neighborhood must be speaking about my departure and myjoining the theater. . . . Surely, Krenska must have left no stoneunturned. . . . He is concerned only about the gossip that iscirculating. He feels disgraced through me. He would like to see mebroken and begging forgiveness at his feet. That is what he isanxious about!"

"You do not know him! Such hearts . . . "

Janina hastily interrupted him: "Let us not speak of hearts where onone side they do not at all enter into the question, where they areentirely lacking and there is only an insane . . . "

"So then? . . . " he asked rising, for he was choking with a spasm ofanger. 

The bell in the hall rang sharply, evidently pulled violently bysomeone. 

"I will never return, " said Janina with final determination. 

"Janina . . . Have mercy . . . "

"I do not understand that word, " she answered with emphasis, "and Irepeat: never! unless it be . . . After I am dead. "

"Don't say that, for . . . "

He did not finish for the door suddenly swung wide open and Mimiwith Wawrzecki came rushing in. 

"Well, are you coming? Hurry and dress yourself, for we startimmediately! . . . Ah, I beg your pardon, I did not know you had avisitor, " cried Mimi, observing Grzesikiewicz who took his hat, bowed automatically, and, without looking at anyone, whispered. 

"Good-bye. "

And without more ado he left. 

Janina sprang up as though she wished to detain him, but Kotlickiand Topolski were just then entering and greeted her jocularly. After them came some third person. 

"What sort of broad gentleman was that? As I live, it is the firsttime that I saw such a mass of meat in a surtout!" cried that thirdcomer. 

"This is Mr. Glogowski. In a week we are to present his play and ina month he will be famous throughout Europe!" said Wawrzecki, introducing him. 

"And in three months my fame will reach Mars with all itsappurtenances! . . . If you are going to bluff, at least let it be agood bluff" laughed Glogowski. 

Janina greeted them all, and in a subdued voice answered Mimi whowas asking her about Grzesikiewicz: "An old friend of mine andformer neighbor, a very honest man . . . "

"He must be flushed with money, that youth . . . He looks it!"exclaimed Glogowski. 

"Yes, he is wealthy. His family owns the largest sheep-growing ranchin Congressional Poland . . . "

"A shepherd! . . . He rather looks as though he were a keeper ofelephants! . . . " jested Wawrzecki. 

Kotlicki only smiled and discreetly observed Janina. 

"Something must have happened here . . . For her voice shows she isdeeply moved, " he thought. "Perhaps that was her formerlover? . . . "

"Come, hurry, for Mela is waiting downstairs in a hack, " cried Mimiimpatiently. 

Janina dressed hastily and they all went out together. 

They rode to the bank of the Wisla and from there took a boat toBielany. 

All were in a springtime humor, except Janina. She sat gloomily raptin thought. 

Kotlicki chatted jovially, Wawrzecki jested with Glogowski and thewomen took part in the merriment, but Janina hardly heard a thingthat was being said. She was still pondering her conversation withGrzesikiewicz and the heavy feeling it had left in her heart. 

"Is anything troubling you?" Kotlicki asked with anxiety in hisvoice. 

"Me? Oh nothing! . . . I was just musing upon human misery, " sheanswered. 

"It is not worth thinking of anything that is not pleasure, full oflife and youth . . . "

"Don't complete that nonsense. It is just as if you were to eat offthe butter on a piece of bread and then muse over your dry crustthat you did a foolish thing after all, " interposed Glogowski, "Isee you do not like to eat, only to lick at things. "

"My dear sir, I have the honor of knowing that ever since I was aschoolboy, " Kotlicki retorted sarcastically. 

"That isn't the point; the point is that you advocate downrightsilly things. For instance indulgence, while you have had ampleopportunity to prove upon yourself the sad results of that jollytheory. "

"Both in life and in literature you are always paradoxical. "

"I'll wager you have weak lungs, arthritis, neurasthenia and . . . "

"Count up to twenty. "

They began to argue vehemently and then to quarrel. 

The boat had passed the railroad bridge and the vast calm of theopen country enveloped them on all sides. The sun was shiningbrightly, but a chill dampness arose from the murky waters of theriver. The small waves, saturated with light, like serpents withgleaming scales, splashed about in the sunlight. The long sand dunesresembled water giants, basking in the sun with yellow upturnedbellies. A string of scows floated before them; the pilot in a smallcockleshell boat rowed on in front and every now and then wouldraise his voice in a cry which echoed across the water and reachedthem in a confused medley of tones. A few boatmen plied their oarswith automatic motion and their sad song was wafted to the party andfloated above their heads. Afterwards a growing silence began tospread around them. 

The mild verdure of the shores, the sunlit trail of the watersgleaming with the sheeny softness of satin, the gentle rocking ofthe boat, the rhythmical stroke of the oars unconsciously imposed asilence upon everybody. 

"I will not return!" thought Janina, automatically repeating thosewords, while she gazed upon the blue expanse of waters and pursuedwith her eyes the waves that fled swiftly on before her, "I will notreturn!"

She felt that loneliness was embracing her with ever wider arms andsurrounding her soul with an emptiness into which she gazeddefiantly. Her sorrow, the thought of her father and Grzesikiewicz, all her former acquaintances and her whole past seemed to be flowingon far behind her so that she saw them dimly in the distant graymist and only the faint echo of an entreaty or of weeping seemed toreach her now and then. 

No! she would not have the strength to turn back and swim againstthat current that was bearing her onward. Nevertheless, she feltthat tears were dropping upon her heart and burning it withbitterness. 

They disembarked at the landing-stage at Bielany and began to windtheir way up the hill. 

Janina walked ahead of the company with Kotlicki who did not leaveher for a moment. 

"You owe me a reply, " he said after a while, assuming a tenderexpression. 

"I answered you yesterday, and to-day you owe me an explanation, "she said harshly, for now, after that recent conversation withGrzesikiewicz and all that it had cost her, she felt an almostphysical aversion and hatred toward Kotlicki; he struck her asrepulsive and brazen. 

"An explanation? . . . Can one explain love or analyze afeeling? . . . " he began, uneasily biting his thin lips. He did notlike the tone of her voice. 

"Let us be sincere, for what you told me is . . . " she criedimpulsively. 

"Is sincerity itself. "

"No, it is only a comedy!" Janina retorted sharply and felt a greatdesire to strike him in the face. 

"You offend me! One can believe a person's feelings without sharingthem, " he said in a quieter tone so that those who followed themwould not hear. 

"Now please listen to what I have to say! I want to tell you thatyour comedy not only wearies me, but is beginning to anger me. I amstill too little a hysterical actress and too much a normal woman totake pleasure in such acting. I was never taught by my mother, thesecret code of a woman's conduct toward a man, nor did they warn meof man's falsehood and baseness. I observed that quickly enough formyself, and see it every day behind the scenes. You think that toevery woman who is in the theater you can boldly talk about yourlove as though it were some trifle, in the hope that perhaps shewill swallow your bait! Actresses are so playful and so silly, aren't they?" she said with stinging scorn. "Would you dare to tellme the same, if I were at home? No, you wouldn't dare tell me youloved me, if you didn't, for there, I would be a woman in your eyes, while here I am only an actress; for there, I would have behind me afather, mother, brothers or some convention which would prohibit youfrom many things. But here, you don't hesitate. And why? Becausehere I am alone and an actress, that is a woman to whom you can withimpunity tell lies, whom you can with impunity possess and then castoff and go your way without the slightest fear of losing yourreputation. Oh, you can be sure, Mr. Kotlicki, that I will notbecome your mistress, nor any other man's if I do not love him! Ihave already thought much, too much, about the matter to be deceivedby fine phrases!" She spoke rapidly, and her sharp words fell likeblows. 

He trembled with impatience and gazed on her in amazement. He didnot know her, and had not assumed for a moment that he would find anactress who would tell him such things to his face. He gazed at herthrough half-closed eyes, and stammered ever more frequently, soimmensely did he like her for her courage. She fascinated him by herstrength of character and honesty, for by those words she hadspoken, by her face which faithfully reflected all her innerfeelings, and by the sincere tones of her voice he began to perceivethat she was an honest and uncommon girl; and in addition she was sobeautiful!

"The whip was rawhide with leaden weights at the end of it. You beatwith a womanly fury both the guilty and the innocent, " saidKotlicki, and seeing that Janina did not answer he added after awhile, "Is this not enough for you? If it would be possible duringthat entire flagellation to kiss your hands, I beg you tocontinue . . . "

"Kotlicki! . . . Wait a minute there and help us carry thebaskets! . . . " called Wawrzecki. 

The men carried the baskets with the provisions, while the wholecompany walked along the steep river bank, seeking a convenient spotfor a camping ground. 

All about them the lonely wood rustled softly with its young oakleaves and juniper bushes. They halted under a grove of verdantoaks. Behind them was the woodland solitude while beneath them theWisla gleamed in the sunlight and murmured with its blue wavesbreaking against the shore. 

After the preliminary drinks and sandwiches all became lively. 

"Well, now let us drink the health of the initiators of the outing!"cried Glogowski, filling the glasses. 

"Let us rather drink to the success of your new play, " cried severalvoices. 

"No, that will not help it any . . . It will turn out a fiascoanyway . . . "

"Perhaps Topolski will now reveal to us his secret plan, " saidKotlicki who was calmly stretched out on his plaid beside Janina. 

"Let that rest! After we have had plenty to eat and still more todrink will be time enough. Perhaps the ladies will untie thosepackages, " cried Wawrzecki. 

Napkins were spread out on the grass and a variety of dainties wasbrought forward and set upon them amid laughter. 

"That's nice, but where is the tea?" exclaimed Janina. 

Kotlicki jumped up. 

"The tea is here and also the samovar, only you, sir, will have togo for some water. We shall go together for it to the Wisla!" criedMajkowska, shaking the charcoal out of a pitcher. 

Kotlicki frowned a bit, but went along with her. In a few minutesthe samovar was started, Glogowski proving himself a real master. 

"That is my specialty!" he shouted blowing at the fire like a pairof bellows. "And I must tell you ladies that very often, more oftenthan I like, I lack coal. It is then that my inventive genius comesto the fore: I stoke the fire with papers or, if that is alsomissing, I pluck a board from the floor and, willy nilly, the tea isproduced. "

"You must lead a very diversified life!" remarked Topolski with alaugh. 

"A trifle! Just a trifle . . . But I won't say that I relish it. "

"I proclaim to all in general and to everyone in particular that thetea is beginning to boil! . . . Now, ladies, assume the roles ofHebes!" called Glogowski. 

Janina poured out the tea for all of them before sitting down nearMimi. 

"I am organizing a dramatic society, " began Topolski. 

"I will tell you the only way to do it: you engage a few score ofthe theatrical tribe by promising them high salaries and give themsmall advances; you look for a lady treasurer who is wise enough tohave a bond and naive enough to deposit it; with it you buy thenecessary accessories, have them sent on account and you are readyeither to begin, or to break up. And in two months you can repeatthe same prescription until you get results, " jested Wawrzecki. 

"Wawrzecki, quit your confounded nonsense!" cried the irritatedTopolski, drinking one glass of brandy after another. "That kind ofcompany any idiot can organize, any Cabinski. I don't want a band ofplayers who will scatter to the four winds as soon as someone luresthem with the promise of a big advance, but a strong organizationwith a well-defined plan, an organization as solid as a stonewall!"

"You often broke up companies yourself and yet you think you canmanage actors? . . . " persisted Wawrzecki. 

"I am sure of it. Listen all! This is how I would go about it:condition one--about five thousand rubles to begin with; I fish outof all the companies their best forces, thirty persons at most; Ipay them moderately but honestly; I assure dividends . . . " "Comenow, you had better give up dreaming about dividends!" growledKotlicki. 

"There will be a dividend! there must be!" cried Topolski withgrowing enthusiasm. "I select my plays: a series of typical andclassical things; these will be the walls and foundations of myedifice; furthermore, all the more important novelties and all thefolkplays, but away with operetta, away with clownishness, away withthe circus, away with everything that is not true art! I want tohave a theater and not a puppet show! artists are not clowns!" hecried in an ever louder voice. 

Topolski began to cough so violently that all the veins in his neckswelled like whipcords. He coughed for a long time, then took adrink of brandy and began talking again, but in a quieter and slowervoice, without looking at anyone, or seeing anything beyond thisdream of his whole life, which he related in short and tangledsentences. 

Kotlicki, who was not stirred even for a moment by that speech fullof inspiration as well as illogicality, remarked: "You are a littlelate. Antoine in Paris has long ago put into practice what youpropose; those are his ideas . . . "

"No, those are my ideas, my dreams; for twenty years already I amcarrying them within me!" cried Topolski, growing suddenly livid asthough struck by lightning, and gazing in a dazed way at Kotlicki. 

"What of that, when others have already partially realized thosedreams and given them their name . . . "

"Thieves! they have stolen my idea! they have stolen my idea!"shouted Topolski and fell over half-senseless on the grass, coveringhis face with his hands, sobbing convulsively and stammering in adrunken voice: "They have stolen my idea! . . . Help! they havestolen my idea!" And he continued to roll about on the grass, sobbing like a grieved child. 

"Not because of the fact that that idea is already known do I seethe impossibility of realizing such a project, " began Glogowskicalmly, "but because our public has not yet reached the point whereit is ready for such a theater and does not feel the need of such astage. In the meanwhile, give them the farce full of acrobaticstunts and leg-shows, a half-naked ballet, cancan howling, a little, cheap kitchen sentimentality, a heap of empty phrases on the subjectof virtue, morality, the family, duty, love, and . . . "

"Count up to twenty . . . " laughed Kotlicki. 

"Just as is the public, so are its theaters; one is worth as much asthe other!" remarked Majkowska. 

"He who wants to rule the multitude and rule over it, must flatterit and do that which the multitude wants; he must give it that whichit needs; he must first be its slave so that he may later become itsmaster, " said Kotlicki slowly and with unction. 

"I will say: no! I neither want to cringe to the mob, nor be itsmaster; I prefer to go my own way alone . . . " answered Glogowskiemphatically. 

"A splendid standpoint! From it you can laugh at everyone to yourheart's content. "

"Miss Janina, please let me have some tea!" cried the alreadyirritated Glogowski, springing up violently, throwing his hat at atree and feverishly rumpling his sparse hair. 

"You are ever a fiery radical of native breed, " said Kotlicki with agood-natured irony. 

"And you are a poor fish, a seal, a whale . . . "

"Count up to twenty!"

"Those are fine arguments, indeed! . . . Here is a much better one, "cried Wawrzecki, handing Glogowski his cane. 

Glogowski calmed himself, gazed around a moment and began drinkinghis tea. 

Majkowska was listening silently, while Mimi, stretched out onWawrzecki's overcoat, was fast asleep. 

Janina was serving tea to all and did not lose a word of thatconversation. She had already forgotten about Grzesikiewicz, abouther father, and about her talk with Kotlicki, and was entirelyengrossed by the questions that were now being discussed, whileTopolski's dreams fascinated her by their fantasies. Such generaldiscussions on art and artistic subjects absorbed her entirely. 

"What about your dramatic society?" she asked Topolski who was justraising his head. 

"It will be . . . It must be formed!" answered Topolski. 

"I warrant you it will be, " interposed Kotlicki, "not the kind thatTopolski desires but that which will be the best within the boundsof possibility. It will even be possible to introduce certainimprovements by way of variety and attraction, but we shall leavethe reformation of the theater to someone else; for that you wouldneed hundreds of thousands of rubles and you would have to start itin Paris. "

"The reformation of the theater will not originate with themanagers, and as for dramatic creativity, what is it really? . . . The seeking of something in the dark, a dog-like scenting about, anaimless straying, or the antics of a flea. A genius must arrive torevolutionize the modern theater; I already have a feeling that oneis coming . . . " asserted Glogowski. 

"How is that? . . . Aren't the existing masterpieces of the dramasufficient for creating an ideal theater?" queried Janina. 

"No . . . Those masterpieces belong to the past; we need otherworks. For us those masterpieces are a very important archeology, "answered Glogowski. 

"So in your estimation Shakespeare is antiquated?"

"Sh! let us not speak of him; he is the whole universe; we canmerely contemplate him, but never understand him . . . "

"And Schiller?"

"A Utopian and classic: an echo of the Encyclopedists and the FrenchRevolution. He represents nobility, order, German doctrinarianismand pathetic and wearisome declamation. "

"And Goethe?" ventured Janina, who had developed a great liking forGlogowski's paradoxical definitions. 

"That means only Faust, but Faust is so complicated a machine thatsince the death of the inventor no one knows how to wind it or startit going. The commentators push its wheels, take it apart, clean it, and dust it, but the machine will not go and already is beginning torust a little. . . . Moreover, it is a furious aristocracy. That Mr. Faust is first of all not the ideal type of man, but anexperimenter; he is nothing but the brain of one of those learnedrabbis who spend their whole lives on pondering whether it is properto enter the synagogue with the right or the left foot first; he isa vivisector, who, after breaking the heart of Margaret in theprocess of his experimentation, and fearing the threat ofimprisonment, and being unable by virtue of his shortsightedness tosee anything beyond his study and his retorts, makes a sport ofcomplaining and laments that life is base and knowledge isworthless. In truth, it requires a great deal of genuinely Germanarrogance to maintain when you have a catarrh that everybody elsehas it or ought to have it. "

"I prefer such merry works to your wise plays, " whispered Kotlicki. 

"Oh, and what of Shelley and Byron?" begged Janina, whose interestwas fully aroused. 

"I prefer foolishness even when it presumes to speak rather thanwhen it seeks to create something" Glogowski hastily flung back atKotlicki. 

"Aha, Byron! . . . Byron is a steam engine producing a rebelliousenergy; a lord who was dissatisfied in England and dissatisfied inVenice with Suiciolla, for although he had a warm climate and moneyhe was bored. He is a rebel-individualist, a strong, passionatemonster; a lord who is always seething with fury and using all theforces of his wonderful talent to spite his enemies. He slappedEngland's face with masterpieces. He is a mighty protestant out ofboredom and in his own personal interest. "

"And Shelley?"

"Shelley again, is a divine lingo for the public of Saturn; he isthe poet of the elements and not for us mortals. "

Glogowski became silent and went to pour himself some tea. 

"We are still listening; at least, I am waiting with impatience foryou to continue your very interesting exposition, " exclaimed Janina. 

"Very well, but I am going to skip over a great many immortals so asto finish sooner. "

"You can continue on the condition that you'll do so withouttinkling the bells and beating the tambourine. "

"Kotlicki, keep quiet! You are a miserable philistine, a typicalrepresentative of your base species and you are denied a voice whenhuman beings are speaking!"

"Gentlemen, please quit your arguing, for I can't sleep, " pitifullypleaded Mimi. 

"Yes, yes, it isn't at all amusing!" added Majkowska with a mightyyawn. 

Wawrzecki began again to fill the glasses. Glogowski moved close toJanina and began enthusiastically to expound to her his theory. 

"Ibsen makes a strange impression on me; he foreshadows someonemightier than himself who is yet to come; he is like the light ofdawn before the rising sun. And as regards the newest, over-praisedand over-advertised Germans: Suderman and Company they are merely aloud prating about small things; much ado about nothing. They wishto convince the world for instance that it is unnecessary to wearsuspenders with your trousers, because you can sometimes wear themwithout suspenders. "

"So we have finally got to the point where there are no more left todispose of, " interposed Kotlicki. "One got a whack over the head, another a jab in the ribs, a third a very polite kick and soforth . . . "

"No, my dear sir, I still remain!" rejoined Glogowski, with acomical bow. 

"We demolished vast edifices for the sake of a soap bubble. "

"Perhaps, but since even in soap bubbles the sun is reflected . . . "

"Therefore, let us have another drink of brandy!" exclaimedTopolski, who had been silent up till now. 

"Throw out all that argumentation to the dogs! . . . Let us drinkand quit thinking!" chimed in Wawrzecki. 

"That last statement is an epitome of yourself, Wawrzecki!" remarkedGlogowski. 

"Let us drink and love one another!" proposed Kotlicki, rousinghimself and tinkling his glass against the bottle. 

"To that I will agree, as I am Glogowski, I will agree, for lovealone is the soul of the world!"

"Wait a minute, I will sing you something about love, " criedWawrzecki, and he proceeded to drone an amorous ditty. 

"Bravo Wawrzecki!" cried the entire company and with that they allabandoned themselves to pure merriment, ceased arguing and babbledany nonsense that came to their lips. 

"Most esteemed ladies and gentlemen! the sky is beginning to cloudand on earth the bottles are all empty. Let us beat a retreat!"finally suggested Wawrzecki. 

"But how?" chorused a few voices. 

"We will go on foot, for it is not more than a mile to Warsaw. "

"We'll hire some husky fellow to carry the baskets for us. I'll goand see if I can find someone, " said Wawrzecki, and he went off inthe direction of a monastery. 

Before he returned all were ready for the homeward journey. Thegeneral mood of gayety had even risen, for Mimi was dancing a waltzwith Glogowski on the greensward. Topolski was so drunk that hecontinually kept talking to himself and quarreling with Majkowska. Kotlicki smiled and kept close to Janina who had become verysportive and merry. She smiled at him and conversed with him, hardlyremembering his recent proposal. He was sure that the impression ofit had merely glided over her soul and sunk away in forgetfulness. 

They walked in disordered groups as is usual after an outing. Janinawas weaving a wreath of oak leaves, while Kotlicki was helping herand amusing her with piquant remarks. She listened to him, but whenthey entered into a bigger and real wood where the ground wascovered with dense underbrush, she suddenly became grave, gazed atthe trees with such great joy, touched their trunks and brancheswith such tenderness, her lips and eyes glowed with such rapture, that Kotlicki asked her, pointing to the trees: "No doubt they mustbe good friends of yours?"

"Yes indeed, good and sincere friends and not comedians!" shereplied with a light irony in her voice. 

"You have a very vengeful memory. You neither believe, nor forgive. I desire only one thing: to be able to convince you . . . "

"Then marry me!" she exclaimed quickly, turning towards him. 

"I beg for your hand!" he murmured in the same tone. 

They glanced straight into each other's eyes and both suddenlybecame gloomy. Janina knitted her brows and began unconsciously totear her unfinished wreath with her teeth, while Kotlicki bowed hishead and became silent. 

"Come, let us hurry, we shall be late for the performance!" calledsomeone, and they hastened to catch up with the rest of the company. 

"So to-morrow there is to be a read rehearsal of my play?" Glogowskiwas asking Topolski. 

"To be exact, it will be only a reading of the play itself, forDobek has not yet finished writing out the roles, " answeredTopolski. 

"Great Scott! and when do you expect to present it?"

"Don't fear, the Philistines will hiss and hoot you soon enough, without your hurrying!" Kotlicki twitted him. 

"We shall present it in a week from next Tuesday . . . At least Iwould have it so, " replied Topolski. 

"Or, strictly speaking, there will remain for rehearsals and for thelearning of the roles only four days. No one will know his part, noone will be able to master it even passably in so short a time. That's nothing short of murder, cold-blooded murder!" criedGlogowski. 

"You'll treat Dobek to a few whiskeys and he will safely pull theplay through for you, " suggested Wawrzecki. 

"Yes, he will shout for everybody. . . . As the matter stands, it isbest to announce that there will take place merely a reading of theplay. "

"You needn't worry about me, I'll learn my role, " Majkowska assuredhim. 

"And I also, " added Janina. 

"I know the ladies always know their parts but the men . . . "

"The men will play their parts well without having to learn them, "remarked Wawrzecki. "Don't you know that Glas never studies hisroles! A few rehearsals familiarize him with the situations of theplay and the prompter does the rest. "

"That's why he plays so splendidly!" sneered Glogowski. 

"What do you want? He's a good actor and not at all a bad comedian. "

"Yes, because he always knows how to improvise some nonsense withwhich to cover up his bungling. "

"Please give me an entirely serious answer. Were those last words ofyours only a joke or were they an expression of your wishes and acondition?" Kotlicki again whispered to Janina as a certain ideaentered into his head. 

"Every variety is good, providing it is not wearisome. Have youheard that before?" answered Janina impatiently. 

"Thank you! I will remember it. . . . But do you know this: patienceis the first condition of success. "

Kotlicki glanced at her quizzically, bowed to her with his head, andretired among the rest of the company. He possessed a brazenself-confidence and decided, at all events, to wait. 

Kotlicki was not one of those whom a woman can drive away fromherself with scorn or even with insults. He accepted everything andcarefully stored it away in his memory for a future reckoning. Hewas a man who had a contempt for women, who told people what hethought to their very faces, and who always craved women and love. He ignored the fact that he was ugly, for he knew he was rich enoughto buy any woman that he might desire. He belonged to that categoryof men which is ready for anything. 

He now walked along smiling at some thought that was in his mind, and striking with his cane the weeds that were in his path. 

It grew dark and the rain began to fall in large drops. 

"We will get drenched like chickens!" laughed Mimi, opening herparasol. 

"Miss Janina, my umbrella is at your service, " called Glogowski. 

"Thank you very much, but as far as I am able, I do not use anyprotection against the rain; I just dote on getting wet in therain. "

"You have the instincts of . . . " he broke off suddenly and pressedhis hand to his mouth with a comical gesture. 

"Finish what you began to say . . . Please do . . . "

"You have the instincts of fish and geese. . . . I am curious toknow how they have developed in you. "

Janina smiled, for she remembered her old autumn and winter trampsthrough the woods in the greatest storms and rainfalls, and sheanswered merrily: "I like such things. I am used from my childhoodto endure rains and rough weather . . . I am simply wild aboutstorms. "

"My, what fiery blood! It must be something atavistic. "

"It's merely a habit or an inner need which has grown to theproportions of a passion. "

Glogowski offered his arm to Janina; she accepted and began torelate to him in an easy, friendly tone the various adventures shehad experienced on her excursions in the country. She felt asunrestrained in his company as though she had known him fromchildhood. At moments she would even forget that this was the firsttime in her life that she had met him. She was won over to him byhis bright and happy face and by the somewhat mild sincerity of hischaracter; she felt in him a brotherly and honest soul. 

Glogowski listened to her, answered her questions, and observed herwith curiosity. Finally, choosing an appropriate moment, he saidfrankly: "May the deuce take me, but you are an interesting woman, avery interesting one! I will tell you something; just now a certainthought struck me and I offer it to you hot from the griddle, onlydon't think it strange. I detest conventionality, social hypocrisy, the affectation of actresses, etc. , count up to twenty! . . . Andthat is just what I fail, as yet, to see in you. Oho! I immediatelynoticed that you were free from all that. Frankly, I like you as acertain type that one meets very rarely. It is interesting, interesting!" he repeated, almost to himself. "We might becomefriends!" he cried delightedly, speaking his thoughts aloud, "For, although women always disappoint me, because sooner or later thefemale of the species crops out in every one of them, still, a newexperiment might be worth something . . . . "

"Frankness in return for frankness, " said Janina, laughing at thelightning-like swiftness with which he formed determinations. "Youalso are an interesting specimen. "

"Well, then, we agree! Let us shake and be good friends!" heexclaimed, extending his hand. 

"But I haven't yet finished what I wanted to say: I must tell youthat I do without confidants and friends entirely. That smacks ofsentimentality and is not very safe. "

"Bosh! Friendship is worth more than love. I see it's beginning topour in earnest. It is the dogs crying over rejected friendship. Ishall have the opportunity of meeting you more often, shall I not?For you have within you something . . . Something like a piece of acertain kind of soul that one comes across very rarely. "

"I am at the theater every day for rehearsals and almost every dayat the performances. "

"Oh the deuce take it, that won't do at all! If I attended on youfor only once a week, it would give rise to so much gossip, twaddle, surmises. "

"Oh I don't care what people say about me!" Janina laughed with aneasy air. 

"Ho! ho! I see you are of the fighting variety . . . A regulargamecock! I like a person who treats with scant ceremony that oldrag called public opinion. "

"I think that as long as I have nothing to reproach myself with, Ican listen calmly to what they say about me. "

"Pride, a capital pride!"

"Why don't you bring out your play in the Warsaw Theater?"

"Because they did not want to produce it. That, you see, is a veryelegant and highly perfumed establishment and only for a verydelicate and subtly feeling public, while my play does not smell abit of the salon; at the most, it smells of the fields, a little ofthe woods and a trifle of the peasant's hut. There they want, nottruth, but flirtation, conventionality bluffing, etc. , count up totwenty. Moreover, I had no backing, and they already have theirpatented play manufacturers. "

"I thought it was only necessary to write something good and theywould immediately produce it. "

"Great Scott! No! . . . Quite the reverse is true. Just look howmuch I must bear before even such as Cabinski presents myplay! . . . Now raise that to the fourth power and only then willyou have some conception of the joys of a beginning comedy writer, who, in addition, does not know how to secure patronage for hisplays. "

They became silent. The rain fell incessantly and was alreadyforming big puddles of water along the road. Glogowski gazedgloomily at the city whose towers appeared outlined upon the mistyhorizon. 

"A base city!" he grumbled angrily. "For three years I have vainlybeen trying to conquer it. I am struggling and killing myself, andyet, not even a dog knows me. "

"If you keep on telling them that they are base knaves and fools youwill never conquer them. "

"I will. They will not love me, to be sure, but they will have toreckon with me, they must! However, such citadels are most easilystormed by actors, singers, and dancers. They make a clean sweep ofeverything with only one appearance. "

"But their triumph is only for a day. After they have left the stageall trace of them is lost like that of a stone cast into the water!"said Janina with a certain bitterness, gazing fixedly at the evernearer appearing, crowded walls of Warsaw. Only at that moment didshe realize that the fame of which she dreamed was merely the fameof a day. 

"It seems to me that you have an appetite for the same thing that Ihave, " remarked Glogowski. 

"I have!" she answered with emphasis and her voice resounded withthe explosive force of something that had been long pent up. 

"I have!" she repeated, but this time in a much quieter tone andwithout enthusiasm. The light died away in Janina's eyes and theystrayed aimlessly over those heights of the city in the distance, without understanding anything, for she was perturbed by the thoughtof that ephemeral fame, for she remembered the faded wreaths ofCabinska and the bygone fame of Stanislawski, for she was thinkingwith growing bitterness of those thousands of famous actors who weredead and whose names even were forgotten. Janina felt a distressingconflict of feelings in her breast. She leaned more heavily onGlogowski's arm and walked on without saying another word. 

At Zakroczymska Street they took a hack; Kotlicki jumped in and wentalong with them, forming a party of three. Janina eyed him angrily, but he pretended he did not notice it and gazed at her with hiseverlasting smile. Glogowski and Kotlicki accompanied her to herhome. She had only enough time left to rush into the house, changeher dress, take the things she needed and immediately start offagain for the theater. 

Because of the rain a few of the other chorus girls were also late. Cabinski, expecting an empty house on account of the weather, wasirritated and rushed up and down the stage, shouting to all thosewho were entering: "I see you girls are getting lazy. It is alreadypast eight o'clock and not one of you is yet dressed. "

"We have been attending vespers at the Church of St. Charles ofBorromeus, " explained Zielinska. 

"Don't try to fool me with vespers! The deuce with vespers! Tend tothat which gives you your bread!"

"You provide us so generously with it, Mr. Director!" angrilyretorted Louise. 

"What, I don't pay you? What else do you live on?"

"What do we live on? . . . Certainly not your absurd and merelypromised salaries!"

"Oh, and you are also late?" he cried to Janina who was justentering. 

"I appear only in the third act, so I still have plenty of time. "

"Wicek! go run and get Miss Rosinska. Where is Sophie? Hurry up andbegin! May the devil take you all!" shouted Cabinski growingexasperated. 

He peered through the slit in the curtain. 

"The theater is already filled, by God, and not a soul is, as yet, in the dressing-rooms! Afterwards they complain that I don't paythem! Gentlemen! for God's sake, hurry and get dressed and begin!"

"Right away, as soon as we finish this game. "

A few undressed actors with their make-up half-completed wereplaying a game of poker. Stanislawski alone sat in a corner of thedressing-room before his mirror and was making up his face. Alreadyfor the third time he was rubbing off the paint with a towel andmaking up anew. He gymnasticated his mouth, contracted his brows inanger, puckered his forehead and cast all sorts of glances. He wasrehearsing a character and with each change of his physiognomy, hemumbled beneath his breath the corresponding parts of his role, onlynow and then tossing in the direction of the card players aten-copeck piece and two words: "A four . . . Ten coppers!"

"The public is starting a rumpus! It's time to ring and begin!"pleaded Cabinski. 

"Don't disturb us, Director. Let them wait. . . . A trump! . . . Shell out the coin!"

"A jack . . . You pay!"

"A queen of hearts . . . Hand over five shekles!"

"All's ready! Stake something on Desdemona, Director, " cried one ofthe players, shuffling and stacking the cards. 

"She will betray me!" hissed Cabinski. 

"Doesn't she betray you anyway?"

"Ring!" shouted Cabinski to the stage-director, hearing a stampingof feet in the hall. 

For a few minutes nothing was heard but the rustling of cards, falling with lightning-like rapidity upon the table. 

"Four aces . . . You're done for!"

"Shell out!"

"A jack!"

"A five . . . That's good. I'll at least make something. "

"A queen of hearts. "

"Have some consideration for the ladies!" persisted Cabinski. 

"A queen of spades. Shell out!"

"Enough of that! Hurry and dress yourselves! The audience is alreadybeginning to howl. "

"If that amuses them, why interfere?"

"You'll change your minds about it, if they leave the theater anddemand their money back!" cried Cabinski, rushing out in utterdesperation. 

The actors threw down their cards and all began to dress themselvesin feverish haste and to complete their make-up. 

"What do we play first?"

"The Vow. "

"Stanislawski!"

"You can ring, I am coming!" called Stanislawski, as he slowly madehis way to the stage. 

"Hurry! or they'll wreck the theater!" cried Cabinski in thedoorway. 

They were giving a so-called "dramatic bouquet, " or "as you likeit, " that is: a comic sketch, a one-act operetta, a scene from adrama and a solo dance. Almost the entire company took part in theperformance. 

Janina sat behind the scenes and watched the stage, waiting for herturn. She felt greatly overwrought by the happenings of that entireday. She closed her eyes and became rapt in a quiet meditation ofthe words of Grzesikiewicz, who had again recurred to her memory, but suddenly, she started with a shudder, for behind his face shesaw emerging the satyr-like face of Kotlicki with its mocking smile;then, there passed before her mind a vision of Glogowski with hislarge head and kindly look. She rubbed her eyes as though to drivethose visions away from her, but that smile of Kotlicki would notleave her memory. 

"What a disgusting poodle that Rosinska is!" whispered Majkowska, standing before Janina. 

Janina roused herself and looked up at Majkowska with a certaindissatisfaction. What interest did all that have for her at thepresent moment? And she already began to feel vexed and impatient atthat eternal battle of all with everybody. She wasn't a bitconcerned about Rosinska, whose acting was, in reality, impossible, and nauseatingly sentimental. 

"Cabinski would do well to keep her off the stage, " continuedMajkowska without heeding Janina's silence, but she broke offquickly, for there approached them just then Sophie, Rosinska'sdaughter, who was to dance a solo pas with a shawl. 

She stood beside Majkowska, all dressed for the dance. In thatcostume she looked like a girl of twelve; her figure wasundeveloped, her face was thin and mobile, while her gray eyes andcynically contorted, carmined lips wore the expression of anexperienced courtesan. She watched the acting of her mother, hissingbetween her teeth with dissatisfaction. Finally, she bent overtoward Majkowska and whispered so that Janina could not hear her:"Just look how that old woman is playing!"

"Who? Your mother?"

"Yes. Just look at the eyes she is making at that fellow in the highhat! Hopping about like an old turkey hen, too! Gee whiz, how shehas dolled herself up! She's bent on making herself look young anddoesn't even know how to make up her face decently. I am ashamed ofher. She thinks that all are such fools that they will not noticeher artificial beauty. Ha! ha! She can't fool me, for one. When shedresses, she locks herself up so as not to let me see how she padsand pieces herself together, ha! ha!" she laughed with an almosthostile expression. "Those men are such simps that they believeeverything they see. . . . She buys everything for herself and Ican't even beg money for a parasol from her. "

"Sophie, who ever heard of speaking that way about one's mother!"Majkowska reproved her. 

"Oh slush! a mother isn't anything so great! In about four years Ican become a mother myself, a few times, if I want to; but I'm notso foolish as all that . . . No kids for mine, not on your life! I'dhave to be some fool!"

"You are a nasty and silly kid! I'm going to tell your motherimmediately . . . " indignantly whispered Majkowska, walking away. 

"She's a silly fool herself, even though she is an actress ofstanding. " Sophie hurled after her, pouting her lips spitefully. 

"Stop that! You're preventing me from hearing what is being said onthe stage. "

"You won't lose much, Miss Janina! The old woman has a voice like acracked pot, " continued Sophie unabashed. 

Janina made an impatient motion. 

"And if you only knew how she lies to me! At Lublin there came toour house a certain gentleman named Kulasiewicz, whom I called'Kulas' for he never even brought me any candy. She spanked me forit and told me that he was my father. . . . Ha! ha! ha! I know whatkind of 'fathers' they are. . . . At Lublin, there was Kulas, atLodz, Kaminski and now, she has two of them. . . . She tries to hidethe fact, and thinks that I envy her. I'd have to be some fool forthat! Such penniless jiggers you can pick up anywhere by thebushel . . . "

"Stop that, Sophie, you are a wicked girl!" whispered Janina, boiling with indignation at the cynicism of that actor's child. 

"What's wrong in what I say? Isn't it true?" she answered with awonderful accent of true innocence. 

"You ask me what's wrong! Where will you find another child who sayssuch horrid things about her mother?"

"Well, why is she such a fool? All of the other actresses havelovers who at least have money, while she . . . Look at what she'sgot! I also would be better off if she were wiser. . . . Believe me, when I grow up, I'll not be such a fool as she! . . . "

Janina staggered back, staring at her in amazement, but Sophie didnot understand that and, bending more closely over her, whisperedsignificantly: "Have you already got someone, Miss Janina?"

She hurried away immediately, for the curtain had already descendedand her dance was to begin right away in the entr' acte. 

Janina shuddered as though something unclean had touched her. A coldchill passed through her and a blush of shame and humiliationcovered her face. 

"What filth!" she whispered to herself; Sophie, unconscious of herwas all smiling and radiant on the stage. 

Sophie's long thin mouth like that of a greyhound merely flashed nowand then in the wild tempo of the waltz she was performing. Shedanced with such temperament and skill that a storm of applausegreeted her. Someone even threw her a bouquet. She picked it up and, retreating from the stage, smiled coquettishly like a veteranactress, sniffing in with distended nostrils those signs of thepublic's satisfaction. 

"Miss Janina, " she cried behind the scenes. "Look, I got a bouquet!Now Cabinski must give me a raise. They came especially to see medance . . . Do you hear how they are recalling me!" and she leapedout upon the open stage to bow to the public. 

"Your stage prating isn't worth a fig!" she said to the actresses. "If it weren't for the dance the theater would be empty. " And shepirouetted on tiptoe, laughed triumphantly and went off to herdressing-room. 

The company had begun to play an act of a very lachrymose dramaentitled The Daughter of Fabricius. Topolski appeared in the role ofFabricius and Majkowska impersonated his daughter. They playedentirely well although Topolski was still so drunk that he didn'tknow where he was, but he nevertheless acted so perfectly that noone was aware of it. Only Stanislawski stood behind the scenes andlaughed aloud at his automatic motions and the blank expression ofhis eyes. Majkowska was upholding Topolski every now and then, forhe would have fallen on the stage. 

"Mirowska! come here and see how they are acting!" calledStanislawski to the old actress who was to-day apatheticallydisposed, his eyes glowing with feverish animosity. 

"That is my role! I ought to be playing it. Look what he has made ofit, the drunken beast!" he hissed between his tightly set teeth. Andwhen, applause, that was in spite of everything, merited, broke out, Stanislawski became pale with rage and grasped at one of the scenesto keep from falling over, so great an envy was choking him. 

"Cattle! Cattle!" he whispered hoarsely, shaking his fistthreateningly at the public. 

Then he went to look for the stage-director but being unable to findhim, came back. He continued to walk about excited and angry, scarcely able to stand on his feet. 

"My daughter! . . . My beloved child! so you do not spurn your agedfather? . . . You press to your pure heart your criminalfather? . . . You do not flee from his tears and kisses?" camefloating from the stage Topolski's ardent whisper and struck the oldactor so forcibly that he stood still, thrilled by the acting, forgot entirely about his envy, repeated those words in a whisperand put into those quiet accents of fatherly love so much feelingand tears, so much blood and inspiration and appeared at the sametime so funny standing in the dim light behind the scenes with handspathetically outstretched into empty space, with head bent forwardand eyes fixed upon the rope of the curtain, that Wicek, who sawhim, ran to the dressing-room crying: "Gentlemen, come and seeStanislawski showing something new behind the scenes. "

They all rushed in a crowd to view the sight and, seeing him stillstanding in the same pathetic pose, burst out laughing in unison. 

"Ha! ha! a South American monkey!"

"That is an African mammoth, that has lived for a hundred years, devoured human beings, devoured paper, devoured roles, devoured fameuntil it died from indigestion, " cried Wawrzecki, imitating thevoice and speech of a provincial showman. 

Stanislawski suddenly roused himself, glanced in back of him andencountering the derisive gazes that were centered on him, trembled, and sadly dropped his head upon his breast. 

Janina who had witnessed this entire scene and who in the moments ofthe old actor's ecstasy had not even dared to move a finger for fearof disturbing him, could no longer restrain herself when she sawtears in his eyes and that whole band of cattle jeering at him. Shewalked up to Stanislawski and kissed his hand with involuntaryrespect. 

"My child! my child!" he whispered feebly turning his head to hidethe tears that were streaming from his eyes ever more profusely. Hepressed her hand tightly and went out. 

A storm of wild sorrow, pain, and hatred shook Stanislawski soviolently that he could scarcely descend the stairs. He went outinto the hall, encompassed the stage and the public with a gaze ofunspeakable sadness and walked across the veranda toward the street, but turned about abruptly and remained. 

"He would make a very venerable guardian!" cried someone to Janinaafter Stanislawski's departure. 

"He might organize a new company and play lovers together with her!"added another voice. 

"Jackals! Jackals!" cried Janina aloud, staring defiantly at them. And she had a great desire to spit in the eyes of all those cowards, so violent a wave of hatred surged through her and so base and crueldid they all appear to her. She restrained herself however, andresumed her seat, but for a long time could not calm herself. 

When Janina went on the stage with the chorus, she was stilltrembling and agitated and the first person she saw in the audiencewas Grzesikiewicz who sat in the front row of seats. Their eyes met;he made a motion as though he wanted to leave, while she stoodamazed for one brief instant in the center of the stage, butimmediately collected herself, for she also spied Kotlicki sittingnot far away and closely observing Grzesikiewicz and further onNiedzielska who was standing near the stalls and smiling at her in afriendly manner. 

Janina did not look at Grzesikiewicz, but she felt his eyes upon herand that began to add to her agitation and excitement. Sheremembered that she had on short skirts and a peculiar shame filledher at the thought that she was standing before him in these gaudy, theatrical togs. It is impossible to describe what took place withinher. Never before had she felt like this. In her stage appearancesshe usually gazed at the public with an expression of aloofness ason a foolish and slavish throng, but to-day it seemed to her asthough she were standing in the front part of a huge cage like someanimal on exhibition, while that audience had come to view her andamuse itself with her antics. For the first time she saw that smilewhich was not on any particular face, but which, nevertheless, hovered over all faces and seemed to fill the theater; it was asmile of indulgent and unconscious irony, a smile of crushingsuperiority that is seen on the faces of older people when theywatch the playing of children. She felt it everywhere. 

Afterwards Janina saw only the eyes of Grzesikiewicz immovably fixedupon her. She violently tore herself away from that gaze and lookedin another direction, but saw, nevertheless, how Grzesikiewicz gotup and left the theater. To be sure, she was not waiting for him, nor did she expect to see him again, yet his departure touched herpainfully. She gazed as though with a certain feeling ofdisappointment at the empty seat which he had occupied just a momentago and then she retreated with the chorus to the back of the stage. 

Glas stood before the very box of the prompter and quietly andsignificantly began to knock with his foot to Dobek for he was tosing some solo part of which, as was his usual custom, he did notknow a single word. Halt signaled to him with his baton and Glaswith a comically attuned face began to sing some remembered word andstrain his ears for a cue from Dobek, but Dobek was silent. 

Halt rapped at his desk energetically, but Glas kept on singing oneand the same thing over and over again, whispering pleadingly toDobek in the pauses: "Prompt! Prompt!"

The chorus, scattered at the back of the stage, began to be confusedby the situation, while behind the scenes someone began to recitealoud to Glas, the words of the unfortunate song, but Glas, allperspiring and red with anger and emotion kept on singing, in acircle: "You are mine, oh lovely Rose!" without hearing anything, orknowing what was going on about him. 

"Prompt!" he whispered once more in despair, for already theorchestra and a part of the audience had noticed what was happeningand was laughing at him. He kicked Dobek in the face and suddenlystood mute and motionless, gazing with a blank expression at thepublic, for Dobek, having received a kick in the teeth, grabbed Glasby the leg and held him tightly. 

"Do you see, my boy! Next time don't try to get frisky!" whisperedthe prompter, holding Glas so tightly by the leg that he could notmove. "You are done for! You tried to fix Dobek, now Dobek has fixedyou! Now we are even!"

The situation was saved by Halt and Kaczkowska who began to sing thefollowing number. Dobek let go Glas's leg, retreated as deeply as hecould into his box and calmly continued to prompt from memory, smiling good-naturedly at Cabinski, who was shaking his fistthreateningly at him from behind the scenes. 

Janina had not yet succeeded in making out what was happening at thefront of the stage, for she saw Grzesikiewicz returning with a largebouquet in his hand. He resumed his former seat and only when thechorus again appeared on the proscenium did he rise, walk over tothe orchestra and throw the flowers at Janina's feet. Then he turnedabout calmly, passed through the hall and vanished, without caringthat he had called forth a sensation in the theater. 

The girl automatically picked up the flowers and retreated to theback of the stage behind her companions, feeling the eyes of thewhole audience centered upon her. 

"Is there a 'soul' in it?" whispered Zieliaska, pointing to thebouquet. 

"Look in the center of the flowers, perhaps you will find somethingamong them, " another one of the chorus girls whispered to her. 

Janina did not look, but felt a deep gratitude toward Grzesikiewiczfor those flowers. After the curtain fell she left the stage withoutpaying any attention to the violent quarrel that broke out betweenGlas and Dobek. 

Glas was jumping with rage, while Dobek was slowly putting on hisovercoat and calmly and tauntingly answering: "An eye for an eye. Sweet is vengeance to the human heart. "

He had revenged himself for the trick that Glas had played on him onthe foregoing day when he had got Dobek drunk and together withWladek made him up as a negro. Dobek as soon as he had sobered a bithad calmly gone straight from the saloon to the theater withoutknowing what had happened to his physiognomy. They had a roaringgood time behind the scenes, but Dobek swore vengeance and kept hisword, threatening in addition that he would yet get square withWladek. 

Cabinski, irritated by what had happened on the stage, said allkinds of things to Glas, but the latter did not answer him, sodeeply humiliated was he by his breakdown on the stage. 

Janina all dressed in her street attire, was only waiting forSowinska to go home with her, when Wladek sidled up to her andsoftly asked:

"Will you allow me to accompany you? . . . "

"I am going with Sowinska and besides you live in another part ofthe city, " answered Janina. 

"Sowinska has just requested me to tell you that she will not returnfor an hour. She is at the director's house. "

"Well then, let us go. "

"Perhaps your bouquet is in the way, let me carry it for you . . . "he said, extending his hand to take the flowers. 

"Oh no, thank you . . . . " answered Janina. 

"It must be very precious! . . . " he said, emphasizing his wordswith a laugh. 

"I don't know how much it costs, " she answered coldly, showing nodisposition to converse with him. 

Wladek laughed, then he spoke about his mother and finally said:"Perhaps you will come to see us? My mother is ill and for a fewdays she has not left her bed. "

"Your mother is ill? Why, I saw her in the theater to-day. "

"Is that possible!" he cried in real confusion. "I give you my wordthat I was certain she was ill . . . For my mother told me that fora few days she has not risen from her bed. "

"My mother is trying some scheme on me . . . " he finally added witha frown. 

Old Niedzielska was merely continually and persistently spying onhim and always had to know with whom he was carrying on a romance, for she constantly trembled at the thought that Wladek might marrysome actress. 

He took leave of Janina with an attitude of exaggerated respect atthe very door of her house and told her that he must go to see hismother to convince himself about her illness. 

As soon as Janina had entered the house, Wladek went to the theaterand, meeting Sowinska, held a long and secret conversation with her. The old woman eyed him derisively and promised him her support. 

Then he hurried away to Krzykiewicz's house for a game of cards, forthey would often arrange such card-playing evenings now at this, nowat another actor's home, to which they would invite many of theirfriends from the public. 

Janina, having entered her room, placed her flowers in a vase withwater and, retiring to sleep, gazed once more at the roses andtenderly whispered: "How good he is!"

CHAPTER VIII

"Please miss, here's the circular!" cried Wicek, entering Janina'sroom. 

"What is the news? . . . "

"The reading of that new play, or something like that!" he repliedprying about the room. 

Janina signed her name to the circular in which the stage-managersummoned the entire company to appear at noon for the reading ofGlogowski's play The Churls. 

"A fine bouquet!" exclaimed Wicek, eyeing the flowers standing inthe vase. "You might still melt it. . . . "

"Speak like a human being!" said Janina, handing back the signedpaper. 

"That means I could still sell that bouquet for you. "

"But who sells such bouquets and who buys them? . . . "

"Pardon me, miss, but I see you are still green! Some ladies as soonas they receive flowers, sell them to the old woman who peddlesflowers in the evening at the theater. I could get a ruble easy forthat. If you would give it to me . . . "

"You can't have it. . . . But here's something else for you. "

Wicek humbly kissed Janina's hand, overjoyed with the ruble she gavehim. 

After Wicek's departure Janina changed the water in the vase withthe flowers and was just standing it on the table when Sowinskaentered with her breakfast. 

Sowinska was to-day all radiant: her gray, owlish eyes were beamingwith unaccustomed friendliness. 

The old woman stood the coffee on the table and, pointing to thebouquet, remarked with a smile: "What beautiful flowers! Are theyfrom that gentleman who was here yesterday?"

"Yes, " came the curt reply. 

"I know someone who would be very pleased to send you the same kindevery day. . . . " Sowinska spoke in a tone of pretendedindifference, as she tidied the room. 

"Flowers?" asked Janina. 

"Well . . . And something more, if it were accepted. "

"That person would have to be quite a fool. "

"Don't you know that love makes fools of everyone?"

"That may be, " answered Janina curtly. 

"Don't you surmise who it is?"

"I'm not at all curious. "

"Yet, you know him very well. "

"Thank you, but I don't need any information. "

"Don't get angry. . . . What is there wrong in it? . . . " slowlydrawled Sowinska. 

"Ah, so it is you who presume to tell me that? . . . "

"Yes I, and you know that I wish you as well as I wish my owndaughter. "

"You wish me as well as your own daughter?" slowly repeated Janina, looking straight into the other's face. 

Sowinska dropped her eyes and silently left the room, but behind thedoor she paused and shook her fist threateningly. 

"You saint! Wait!" she hissed. 

When Janina reached the theater she found only Piesh, Topolski, andGlogowski present. 

Glogowski approached her with a smile, extending his hand. 

"Good morning. I was thinking about you yesterday; you mustunfailingly thank me for that. . . . "

"I do thank you! But I'm curious to know . . . "

"I assure you I didn't think ill about you. . . . I didn't thinkabout you as others of my sex would think about such beautiful womenas you, no! May I croak if I did! I thought . . . 'Where does yourstrength come from?'"

"No doubt from the same source as weakness comes from; it'sinherent, " answered Janina seating herself. 

"You must have some nice little dogma and with your mind fixed onthat you go forward. That dogma has reddish-yellow hair, a yearlyincome of about ten thousand rubles, he wears binoculars and . . . "jested Topolski. 

"And . . . Forget the rest of it! It's always time enough fornonsense, that never grows old, " Glogowski interrupted Topolski. 

"You'll also drink with us, won't you, Miss Janina?"

"Thank you! I don't drink. "

"But you must . . . If it be only to moisten your lips. It is thebeginning of the funeral celebration over my play, " joked Glogowski. 

"Exaggeration!" mumbled Piesh. 

"Well, we shall see! Come on, Mr. Piesh, Mr. Topolski, let's haveanother, " cried Glogowski, pouring out the cognac. 

He smiled and joked continually, led the arriving actors to thebuffet and seemed very lively, but one could see that under hisforced gayety there was a hidden anxiety and doubt regarding thesuccess of his play. 

On the veranda a noisy little revel had begun, where Glogowski wastreating everybody, but the humors of all those present seemed to bepartially dampened by the drizzling weather. Cabinski every now andthen gazed up at the sky, took off his top hat and scratched hishead with dissatisfaction. Pepa walked about as glum as an autumnday . . . Majkowska glared at Topolski with fiery eyes and seemed tohave a great desire to create a scene, for her lips were pale andher eyes red, either from crying or sleeplessness. Glas also stalkedabout like a poisoned man after yesterday's fiasco and failed toutter a single one of his usual jokes. Razowiec was examining histongue in a mirror and lamenting to Mrs. Piesh. Even Wawrzecki wasnot "in the proper situation, " as he chose to describe hisindisposition. 

"It is half-past twelve. . . . Come, let's begin to read the play, "said Topolski, the stage-manager. 

A table was pushed out into the center of the stage, chairs wereplaced around it and Topolski, armed with a pencil, began to read. 

Glogowski did not sit down, but kept walking about in big circlesand every time he passed Janina he would whisper some remark atwhich she laughed quietly, while he continued to pace about, rumplehis hair, throw his hat into the air and smoke one cigarette afteranother, all the time, however, listening attentively to thereading. 

Outside the rain continued to drizzle and the water drippedmonotonously down the drainpipes. The drab, dull daylight streamedin upon the stage. Glas amused himself by throwing cigarette buttsat Dobek's nose, while Wladek gently blew at the head of the dozingMirowska. From the dressing-room came the buzz of a saw cutting woodand the hammering of nails it was the stage mechanician preparinghis props for the evening performance. 

"Mr. Glogowski, we shall have to cut out a little here, " remarkedTopolski occasionally. 

"Go ahead!" Glogowski would reply, continuing his promenade. 

The whispers grew louder. 

"Kaminska will you go downtown with me? I want to buy some materialfor a dress. "

"All right, we shall look over some autumn capes while we're at it. "

"What is that going to be? . . . An insertion?" Rosinska asked Mrs. Piesh who was busily crocheting something. 

"Yes, do you see what a nice design it is? I got a sample from thedirectress. "

Again there followed a moment of complete silence in which was heardnothing but the even voice of the stage-manager, the dripping of therain and the buzz of the saw in the dressing-room. 

"Let me have a cigarette, " said Wawrzecki turning to Wladek. "Didyou win anything at cards yesterday?"

"I lost, as usual, just as I was on the point of making a big haulof three hundred rubles. Some luck, eh? . . . A certain plan hasoccurred to my mind! . . . " Wladek leaned over toward Wawrzecki andbegan to whisper secretly into his ear. 

"What have you done about your living quarters?" Krzykiewicz askedGlas, handing him a cigarette. 

"Oh, nothing, I'm still living in the same place. "

"Are you paying your rent?"

"Not yet, but soon!" answered the comedian, winking one of his eyes. 

"Listen Glas! I heard that Cabinski is buying a house on LesznoStreet. "

"What are you trying to tell me! By Gad, I'd immediately move intoit to make up for the salary he owes me. Where would he get themoney?"

"Ciepieszewski saw him with the agents who have the house for sale. "

"Nurse!" called Cabinska. 

The nurse hastily entered carrying a letter under her apron. 

"It wasn't I, it was Felka who broke that looking-glass. She threw achampagne bottle aiming at the chandelier, but struck the mirrorinstead. Bang! and immediately thirty rubles were added to the bill. That fat guy of hers merely frowned, " one of the chorus girls wasrelating. 

"Don't lie! I was not drunk and I remember exactly who broke it, "retorted Felka. 

"You remember do you? Do you also remember how you jumped off thetable and then took off your shoes and . . . Ha! ha! ha! ha!"

"Be quiet there!" sharply called Topolski to the chorus girls. 

They subdued their voices, but Mimi began almost aloud to tellKaczkowska about a new style of hat she had seen on Long Street. 

"If it goes on that way much longer, I won't be able to stand it!The landlord has ordered me to move. Yesterday I pawned almost thelast rag, for I had to buy my Johnnie some wine. The poor littlefellow is convalescing so slowly. He already wants to get out of bedand is getting restless and peevish. If Ciepieszewski doesn't engageme and pay me in advance, the landlord will throw me out into thestreet, " whispered Wolska to one of her companions of the chorus. 

"But are you sure Ciepieszewski is organizing a company?" asked herlistener. 

"He is, undoubtedly. I am to see him in a few days to sign acontract. "

"So you're not going to stay with Cabinski?"

"No, he doesn't want to pay the overdue salary he owes me. "

Thirty years were written plainly on Wolska's wearied face on whichworry had left its deep marks. The thick layer of powder and rougecould not conceal those wrinkles, nor the unrest that glowed in hereyes. She had a six-year-old son who had been ill since the spring. She defended him desperately, at the expense of starving herself. 

"Counselor! Welcome to our company!" cried Glas, spying the old man, who for a few weeks had not been seen in the theater. 

The counselor entered and began greeting everybody. The reading ofthe play was interrupted, for all sprang up from their seats. 

"Good morning! Good morning! Am I interrupting you?"

"No, no!" chorused the actors. 

"Have a seat, Counselor. We shall listen together, " cried Cabinska. 

"Ah, young master! my regards to you!" called the counselor toGlogowski. 

"An old idiot!" growled Glogowski, nodding his head and hidingbehind the scenes, for he was already exasperated at those continualinterruptions and conversations. 

"Silence! For goodness' sake, this is getting to be like a realsynagogue!" cried the irritated Topolski and began to read on. Butno one listened any longer. The directress left with the counselorand, one by one, the others quietly slipped out after her. The rainbegan to pour heavily and beat so noisy a tattoo upon the tin roofof the theater that it drowned out all other sounds. It became sodark, that Topolski could not see to read. 

The entire company removed to the men's dressing-room. It waslighter and warmer there, so they began to chat. 

Janina stood together with Glogowski in the doorway and was sayingsomething in an enthusiastic voice about the theater when Rosinskainterrupted her with derision: "Goodness, you seem to be obsessed bythe theater! . . . Well, well, I would never have believed such athing possible had I not heard it . . . . "

"Why, it's simple enough; the theater holds everything that Idesire. "

"I, on the other hand, only begin to live outside of the theater. "

"Then why don't you abandon the stage?"

"If I only could break away. I'd not stay here another hour!" sheanswered with bitterness. 

"That's merely talk! Each one of us could break away from thetheater, if we only would, " said Wolska quietly. "For me this lifeis harder than for any of you and I know that if I forsook the stagemy lot would be much better, but whenever I think that I shall haveto quit the stage some day, so great a fear besets me that it seemsas though I should die without it. "

"The theater is a slow poisoning, a dying by inches each day!"complained Razowiec. 

"Don't you whine, for your sickness comes not from the theater, butfrom your stomach, " remarked Wawrzecki. 

"That continual dying and poisoning is, nevertheless, a kind ofecstasy!" began Janina anew. 

"Oh, a splendid ecstasy! If you want to call hunger, continual envy, and the inability to live otherwise, an ecstasy!" sneered Rosinska. 

"Happy are they who have not fallen a prey to that disease, orescaped it in time" added Razowiec. 

"But isn't it better to live and suffer and die in that way, as longas you have art as your goal. A thousand times would I prefer tolive that way than to be my husband's servant, the slave of mychildren, and a household chattel!" exclaimed Janina with apassionate outburst. 

Wladek began to declaim with a comical pathos:

"Oh priestess, most elect! To thee, in this temple of art, Highaltars I'll erect!

"Please forgive me that, " continued Wladek. "I myself say thatoutside of art there is nothing! If it were not for thetheater . . . "

"You would have become a cobbler!" interposed Glas. 

"Only a very young and a very naive woman can talk like that, "spitefully exclaimed Kaczkowska. 

"Or one who does not yet know what Cabinski's salary tastes like, "added Rosinska. 

"Oh, thou art worthy of pity! You have enthusiasm . . . Poverty willrob you of it; you have inspiration . . . Poverty will rob you ofit; you have youth, talent, and beauty . . . Poverty will rob you ofit all!" declaimed Piesh in the stern tones of an oracle. 

"No, all that is nothing! . . . But such a company, such artists, such plays as these will ruin everything. And if you are able toendure such a hell then you will become a great artist!" whisperedStanislawski sourly. 

"A master has proclaimed it, so bow your heads, oh multitude, andsay that it must be so!" jeered Wawrzecki. 

"Fool! . . . " snarled Stanislawski. 

"Mummy!" retorted Wawrzecki. 

"I'll tell you how I began my career, " said Wladek. "I was in thefourth grade at school when I saw Rossi in Hamlet and from thatmoment the theater claimed me entirely! I pilfered cash from myfather to buy tragedies and attended the theater. I spent whole daysand nights in learning roles, and dreamed that I would conquer thewhole world . . . "

"And you're nothing but a tyro in Cabinski's company, " jeered Dobek. 

"I learned that Richter had come to Warsaw and intended to open aschool of dramatic art, " continued Wladek. "I went to see him, for Ifelt that I had talent and wished to learn. He lived on St. John'sStreet. I came to his house and rang the bell. He opened the doorhimself, let me in and then locked it. I began to perspire with fearand didn't know how to begin. I stood first on one foot and then onthe other. He was calmly washing a saucepan. Then, he poured someoil into an oil-stove, took off his coat, put on a house-jacket andbegan to peel potatoes. 

"After a long silence, seeing that I would not get him to respond inthat way, I began to stammer something about my calling, my love ofart, my desire to learn and so forth. . . . He continued to peel hispotatoes. Finally, I asked him to give me lessons. He glanced at meand grumbled: 'How old are you, my boy?' I stood there dumbfoundedlike a mummy and he continued to question: 'Did you come with yourmother?' Tears began to fill my eyes, while he spoke again: 'Yourfather will give you a walloping, and they'll expel you fromschool. ' I felt so distressed and humiliated that I could not uttera word 'Recite some verse for me, young man, ' he said quietly, allthe while systematically peeling his potatoes. "

"So your inclination to roar on the stage harks away back to thosedays, eh?" jeered Glas. 

"Glas, don't interrupt me. . . . Ha! thought I, I'll have to showhim! And although I was all trembling with emotion I assumed atragic pose and began to recite. . . . I writhed, shouted, burst outin a fit of passion like Othello, seethed with hatred, like asamovar and finally finished, all covered with perspiration. 'Somemore, ' said Richter, continually peeling the potatoes, while not asingle muscle of his face betrayed what he thought of it all. Ithought that everything was going fine, so I selected 'Hagar. ' Idespaired like Niobe, cursed like Lear, pleaded, threatened, andended up, all exhausted and breathless. He said: 'Still more!' Hestopped peeling the potatoes and began to chop meat. Enraptured bythe tone of encouragement I selected from Slowacki's Mazeppa thatprison-scene from the fourth act and recited the whole of it. I putinto it so much feeling and force that I became hoarse; my hairstood on end, I trembled, forgot my surroundings, inspirationcarried me away, fire blazed from me as from a stove, my voicemelted in tears. Tragedy swept me off my feet, the room began todance about me, a colored mist swam before my eyes, my breath wasbeginning to fail, I began to grow weak and to choke with emotion, and I seemed about to faint . . . When he sneezed and began to wipetears from his eyes with his coat-sleeve. I stopped reciting. Helaid down the onion that he was slicing, put a pitcher into my handand calmly said to me: 'Go and bring me some water. ' I brought it. He spilled the potatoes into it, stood them on the oil-stove and litthe wick. I timidly asked him whether I could come to take lessonsfrom him. 'Yes, come' he answered, 'you can sweep the floor andcarry water for me. Do you know how to speak Chinese?' 'No, ' Ianswered, not knowing what he was driving at. 'Well, then learnit and come back to me and we shall then speak about thetheater!' . . . I shall never forget that moment as long as I live. "

"Don't get mawkish over it, for Glogowski won't treat you to anymore beer anyway, " remarked Glas. 

"Say what you will, but it is art alone that makes life worthsomething, " persisted Wladek. 

"And didn't you see Richter again?" asked Janina curiously. 

"How could he . . . He hasn't learned Chinese yet, " interposed Glas. 

"No, I didn't go to see him; and moreover, when they expelled mefrom school I immediately ran away from home and joinedKrzyzanowski's company, " answered Wladek. 

"You were with Krzyzanowski?" asked someone. 

"For a whole year I walked with him, his wife, his son, the immortalLeo and one other actress. I say that I 'walked' because in thosedays we seldom used other means of locomotion. Very often there wasnothing to eat, but I could act and declaim as much as I liked. Ihad an enormous repertoire. With a cast of four persons we presentedShakespeare and Schiller, most wonderfully made over for our own useby Krzyzanowski, who besides that had a great many plays of his ownwith double or quadruple titles. "

While the rain continued interminably, they drew together in a stillcloser circle and chatted. Suddenly their conversation wasinterrupted by loud cries from the stage. 

"Quiet! what is that?" asked everybody. 

"Aha! Majkowska versus Topolski in a scene of free love. "

Janina went out to see what was happening. On the almost totallydark stage the heroic pair were engaged in a quarrel. 

"Where were you?" cried Majkowska, springing at Topolski withclenched fists. 

"Let me alone, Mela. "

"Where were you all last night?"

"I tell you, please go away. . . . If you are ill, go home. "

"You were playing cards again, weren't you? And I haven't evenenough money for a dress! I couldn't even buy myself a supper lastnight!"

"Why didn't you want the money when you could have had it?"

"Oh, yes, you'd want me to have money so that you could gamble itaway. You would even help me to get the money for that purpose . . . You base scoundrel!"

She sprang at him with nervous fury. Her beautiful, statuesque faceglowed with rage. She grasped his arm, pinched him and shook him, without herself knowing what she was doing. 

Topolski, losing his patience, struck her violently away from him. 

Majkowska with almost a roar so little did her voice seem to have init anything human and with spasmodic laughter, and crying, andtragic wringing of hands, fell on her knees before him. 

"Maurice, my soul's beloved, forgive me! . . . Light of my life! Ha!ha! ha! you damned scoundrel, you! . . . My dearest, my dearest, forgive me! . . . "

She groveled to his feet, grasped his hands and began rapturously tokiss them. 

Topolski stood there gloomily. He felt ashamed of his own anger, sohe merely chewed his cigarette and whispered quietly: "Come, get upfrom the floor and stop playing that comedy. . . . Have you noshame! . . . In a minute you will have everybody in here looking atyou. "

Majkowska's mother, an old woman, resembling a witch, came runningup to her and tried to raise her from the floor. 

"Mela, my daughter!" she cried. 

"Mother, take that crazy woman away from here; she is continuallycreating scandals, " said Topolski and went out into the hall. 

"My dear daughter! Do you see! I told you and begged you not to gowith such a poor fool! . . . See what your love has brought you to, my Mela! Come, get up, my child!"

"Go to the devil, mother!" cried Majkowska, pushing away her mother. 

Then she sprang up from the floor and began to pace rapidly up anddown the stage. In this violent motion she must have spent the restof her anger, for she began to hum and smile to herself andafterwards called to Janina in the most natural voice: "Perhaps youwill take a walk with me? . . . "

"Very well, it has even stopped raining . . . " answered the youngerwoman, glancing at her face. 

"I have a fine lover, haven't I? . . . Did you see what was goingon?"

"I saw and cannot yet calm my indignation. "

"Oh, nonsense!"

"How can you stand such a thing?"

"I love him too much to pay attention to such trifles. "

Janina began to laugh nervously, and said: "Such things are to beseen only in the operetta . . . Well, and behind the scenes. "

"Bah, I will avenge myself for it!"

"You will avenge yourself? I'm very curious to know how. . . . "

"I will marry him . . . I will make him marry me!"

"So that will be your vengeance?" inquired Janina in amazement. 

"There couldn't be a better one. Oh, I'll make his life warm forhim! . . . Come, I have to buy some chocolate. "

"You didn't have money for supper?" cried Janina involuntarily. 

"Ha! ha! ha! How naive you still are! You saw the gentlemen whosends me bouquets and yet, you think that I have no money! Wherewere you brought up?"

Suddenly, she changed the tone of her voice and asked Janinainquisitively: "Tell me, have you also someone? . . . "

"I have art!" answered Janina gravely, not even offended by herquestion. 

"You are either very ambitious or very wise . . . I did not know youbefore . . . " said Majkowska and began to listen more attentively. 

"Ambitious . . . Perhaps, for I have only one object in belonging tothe theater and that is art. "

"Come, don't try to play a farce with me! Ha! ha! Art, as an aim oflife! That is a theme for a fine couplet, but it is an old trick. "

"That depends on the person in question. "

Majkowska became silent and began gloomily to ponder. 

"It was hard to catch up with you!" called someone behind them. 

"Oh, what brings you here, Counselor? So you are off duty?"spitefully whispered Majkowska, for she knew that the counseloralways attended Cabinska. 

"I want to change my mistress. . . . I am seeking a new position. "

"In my service the duties are very exacting. "

"Oh, in that case, thank you! I am already too old . . . I knowsomeone who would be more considerate for my age. " And he bowed toJanina with studied courtesy. 

"Will you come with us, Counselor?" asked Majkowska. 

"Certainly, but you must permit me to lead the way, ladies. "

"Very well, we'll agree to whatever you suggest. "

"I propose that we have breakfast at Versailles. '"

"I must return to the theater, " said Janina. 

"They've not yet finished reading the play. "

"They'll finish it without you. Come, let us go, " urged Majkowska. 

They walked slowly, for the rain had stopped entirely and the Julysun was drying the mud in the streets. The counselor wiggled about, gazed into Janina's eyes and smiled significantly; he bowed toacquaintances he met on the way and before the younger ones heassumed the pose of a conquerer. 

The "Versailles Restaurant" was empty. They seated themselves nearthe balcony and the counselor ordered a very choice breakfast. 

It was after three o'clock when they returned to the theater. Therehearsal of the day's performance was in full swing. Cabinski wasabout to grumble at them for coming late, but Majkowska gave himsuch a crushing look that he merely frowned and walked away. 

Her mother approached her with a letter. Majkowska read it, immediately scribbled a few words in reply and handed them to theold woman. 

"Deliver this right away, mother, " she said. 

"Mela, but suppose I don't find him in?" asked her mother. 

"Then wait, but do not give it to anyone else but him! Here'ssomething for your trouble, mother . . . " and tapping her throatwith her fingers after the custom of drinkers she gave her a fortycopeck piece. 

The greenish eyes of the old woman gleamed with gratitude and shehurried away with the message. 

Janina looked for Glogowski, but he had already left, so she wentout into the hall to the counselor who had returned with them, forshe remembered that he had promised to tell her what he had read inher palm. 

"Mr. Counselor, you owe me something, " she began, sitting downbeside him. 

"Upon my word I don't remember that I owe you anything. "

"You promised to tell me what you had read in my palm not so longago. "

"Yes, but not here. Come, we had better go to the dressing-room sothat it won't attract anyone's attention. "

They went to the dressing-room of the chorus. 

The counselor spent quite a while examining both her hands veryminutely and finally said with some embarrassment: "Upon my word, this is the first time that I see such strange hands!"

"Oh, please tell me everything!"

"I can't. . . . And I don't know whether it's true. "

"It makes no difference whether it is true or not, you must tell meby all means, my dear Counselor!" coaxed Janina. 

"A mental disorder of some kind, it seems. . . . Of course I don'tknow and I don't believe it. I tell you only what I see But . . . But . . . "

"And what of the theater?" Janina asked. 

"You will be famous . . . You will be very famous!" he whisperedhurriedly without looking at her. 

"That isn't true; you didn't see that there!" she exclaimed, readingthe falsehood in his eyes. 

"My word! my word of honor all that is written there! You willachieve fame, but through so much suffering, through so manytears. . . . Beware of dreaming!"

And he kissed her hand. 

The noisy buzz of voices merged with tones of music broke thestillness in which both of them had become rapt. 

For a little while Janina sat alone, after her companion withdrew, torn by dim forebodings. 

"You are going to be very famous! Beware of dreaming!" she keptrepeating to herself. 

That evening the counselor sent to Janina a bouquet, a box of candy, and a letter inviting her to supper at the "Idyl, " mentioning thatTopolski and Majkowska were also to be there. 

She read it and, not knowing what to do, asked Sowinska. 

"Sell the bouquet, eat the candy, and go to the supper. "

"So that is your advice? . . . " asked Janina. 

Sowinska scornfully shrugged her shoulders. 

Janina angrily threw the bouquet in a corner, distributed the candyamong the chorus girls, and after the performance went straighthome, highly indignant at the counselor whom she had looked upon asa very serious and honest man. 

On the next day at the rehearsal Majkowska remarked tauntingly toJanina: "You are an immaculate romanticist. "

"No, only I respect myself, " answered Janina. 

"Get thee to a nunnery!" declaimed Majkowska. 

In the afternoon Janina went as usual to Cabinska's home to giveYadzia her piano lesson, but she could not forget that scornfulshrug of Sowinska's shoulders and Majkowska's words. 

She finished the lesson and then sat for a long time playingChopin's Nocturnes, finding in their melancholy strains a balm forher own sorrows. 

"Miss Janina . . . My husband has left a role here for you!" calledCabinska from the other room. 

Janina closed the piano and began to peruse the role. It consistedof a few words from Glogowski's new play and did not satisfy her inthe least, for it was nothing but a short little episode. Nevertheless, this was to be her first real appearance in the drama. 

The play had been postponed until the following Thursday andrehearsals of it were to be held every afternoon, for Glogowski hadearnestly requested that and generously treated the entire cast eachday to get them to learn their roles well. 

A few days after receiving her first role Janina's first month atSowinska's expired. The old woman reminded her of it in the morning, asking for the money as soon as possible. 

Janina gave her ten rubles, solemnly promising to pay the balance ina few days. She had only a few rubles left of her entire capital. She thought in astonishment how she had spent the two hundred rubleswhich she had brought with her from Bukowiec. 

"What am I going to do?" Janina asked herself, determining as soonas possible to ask Cabinski for her overdue salary. 

She did so at the very next rehearsal. 

"I haven't the money!" cried Cabinski at once. "Moreover, I neverpay beginners in my company for the first month. It's strange thatno one informed you about that. Others are already here a wholeseason and they don't bother me about their salaries. "

Janina listened in consternation and finally said frankly: "Mr. Director, in a week's time I will not have a penny left to live on. "

"And that old . . . Counselor . . . Can't he give it to you? . . . Surely, everyone knows that . . . "

"Oh, Mr. Director!" whispered Janina, blushing deeply. 

"A pretty deceiver!" he muttered with a cynical twist of his lips. 

Janina forcibly suppressed her indignation and said: "In themeantime I need ten rubles, for I must buy myself a costume for thenew play. "

"Ten rubles! Ha! ha! ha! That's great! Even Majkowska does not askfor so much at one time! Ten rubles! what delightful simplicity!"Cabinski laughed heartily and then, turning to go, he said: "Remindme of it this evening and I will give you an order to thetreasurer. "

That evening Janina received one ruble. 

Janina knew that the chorus girls even after the most profitableperformance received only fifty copecks on account and usually onlytwo gold pieces or forty groszy. Only now, did she recall those sadand worn faces of the elder actresses. There were revealed to hernow many things that she had never seen before, or seeing them, hadnever understood. Her own want opened wide her eyes to the povertythat oppressed everyone in the theater and those hidden dailystruggles with it that they often disguised under a glittering veilof gayety. 

That daily standing before the treasurer's window and fairly beggingfor money, which she was now compelled to do, cast a shadow overJanina's soul and filled her with bitterness. It made her all themore eager to get a larger role so that she might get out of thathated chorus, but Cabinski steadily put her off. 

Kotlicki hovered about Janina incessantly, but did not renew hisproposal and seemed to be waiting his chance. 

Wladek was, the most companionable of all in regard to Janina andtold everyone that she visited his mother. Niedzielska continuallyspied on Wladek, for she already suspected him of liking Janina. 

The girl received Wladek's attentions with the same indifferencethat she received Kotlicki's, with the same indifference that shereceived the bouquets and candy which the counselor sent her everyday. None of these three silent admirers interested her in the leastand she kept them at a respectable distance from herself by hercoolness. 

The other actresses ridiculed Janina's inflexibility, but in theirhearts they sincerely envied her. She ignored their spitefulremarks, for she knew that to answer them would be merely to invitea greater avalanche of ridicule. 

Janina liked only Glogowski, who because of the coming presentationof his play would spend whole days at the theater. He openly singledher out as an object of his special regard from among all the women, spoke only with her on weighty subjects and treated her alone as ahuman being. She felt highly flattered and grateful. She liked himespecially because he never mentioned love to her, nor boasted. Often they would go together for walks in Lazienki Park. Janinaassociated with him on a footing of sincere friendship. 

After the final rehearsal of The Churls, Glogowski and Janina leftthe theater together. He seemed to be more gloomy than usual. He wasracked with anxiety over his play that was to be given that evening, yet he laughed aloud. 

"Suppose we take a ride to the Botanical Gardens. Do you agree?" hesuggested. 

Janina assented and they started off. 

They found an unoccupied seat near one of the pools, under a hugeplane tree and for a time sat there in silence. 

The garden was fairly empty. A few persons seated here and thereupon the benches appeared like shadows in the sultry air. The lastroses of summer gleamed with their bright hues through the foliageof the low-hanging branches; the stocks in the central flower-beddiffused a heavy fragrance. The birds twittered only at rareintervals with somnolent voices. The trees stood motionless asthough listening to the sunlit tranquility of that August day. Onlynow and then some leaf or withered twig would float down in a spiralline upon the lawns. The golden splashes of sunlight filteringthrough the branches formed a shifting mosaic upon the grass andgleamed like strips of pale platinum. 

"Let the devil take it all!" Glogowski occasionally flung out intothe silence and distractedly rumpled his hair. 

Janina merely glanced at him, loath to mar with words the silencethat enveloped her that calm of nature lulled to sleep by theexcessive warmth. She also was lulled by some unknown tendernessthat had no connection with any particular thing, but seemed tofloat down out of space, from the blue sky, from the transparentwhiteness of the slowly sailing clouds from the deep verdure of thetrees. 

"For goodness' sake, say something, or I'll go crazy, or gethydrophobia! . . . " he suddenly exclaimed. 

Janina burst out laughing, "Well, let us talk about this evening, ifabout nothing else, " ventured the girl. 

"Do you want to drive me crazy altogether? May the deuce take me, but I fear I won't endure till this evening!"

"But haven't you told me that this is not your first play, so . . . "

"Yes, but at the presentation of each new one the ague always shakesme, for always at the last moment I see that I have written rubbish, tommyrot, cheap trash . . . "

"I don't pretend to be a judge, but I liked the play immensely. Itis so frank. "

"What? Do you mean that seriously?" he cried. 

"Of course. "

"For you see, I told myself that if this play fails, I shall . . . "

"Will you give up writing?"

"No, but I shall vanish from the horizon for a few months and writeanother one. I will write a second, a third . . . I will write untilI produce a perfectly good one! I must!"

"Tell me, do you think Majkowska will make a good Antka in my play?"he suddenly asked. 

"It seems to me that that role is well-suited to her. "

"Maurice also will play his part well, but the rest of them are amiserable lot and the staging terrible. It's bound to turn out afiasco!"

"Mimi knows nothing about the peasants and her imitation of theirdialect is ludicrous, " remarked Janina. 

"I heard her and it pained me to listen! Do you know the peasants?Ah, Great Scott!" he cried impulsively. "Why don't you act thatrole? . . . "

"Because they didn't give it to me. "

"Why didn't you tell me about that sooner? May the deuce take me, but even if I had to smash up the whole theater I would have forcedthem to give you that role!"

"The director gave me the part of Phillip's wife. "

"That's merely a super, an episode . . . It could have been given toanyone. I feel that Mimi is going to chatter like a soubrette froman operetta. See what you have caused me! By glory, what a mess! Ifyou think that life is a charming operetta, you are greatlymistaken!"

"I already happen to know something about that . . . " answeredJanina with a bitter smile. 

"So far you don't know anything . . . You will learn it only lateron. But after all women usually have an easier time of it. We menhave to fight hard to grasp our share and have to pay dearly. Godknows how dearly. "

"Don't you think the women pay anything?"

"It's this way: women, and particularly those on the stage, owe theminimum part of their success to their talents or themselves; themaximum part to their lovers who support them and the rest to thegallantry of those men who hope to be able to support them someday. "

Janina answered nothing, for there flashed before her mind a pictureof Majkowska with Topolski in back of her, Mimi with Wawrzecki, Kaczkowska with one of the journalists and so on through almost allof them. 

"Don't be angry with me. I merely stated a fact that came to mymind. "

"No. I'm not angry. I admit you're entirely right. "

"With you, it will not be that way, I feel it. Come, let us go now!"he suddenly cried, jumping up from the bench. 

"I will say something more . . . " said Glogowski when they werealready walking down the shaded paths on their way back, "I willrepeat what I said on the day that I first met you at Bielany; letus be friends! . . . It's no use trying to deny it, man is agregarious beast: he always needs someone near him so that his loton this earth may be half-way bearable . . . Man does not standalone; he must lean against and link up with others, go togetherwith them and feel together with them to be able to accomplishanything. To be sure, one kindred soul suffices. Let us be friends!"

"All right, " said Janina, "but I will lay down one condition. "

"Quick, for God's sake! For perhaps I will not accept it!"

"It is this: give me your word of honor that you will never, neverspeak to me about love, and that you will not fall in love with me. You can even confide in me, if you wish, all your love affairs anddisappointments. "

"Agreed, all along the line! I seal that with my solemn word ofhonor!" cried Glogowski. 

They gravely pressed each others' hands. 

"This is a union of pure souls with ideal aims!" he laughed, winkinghis eyes. "Something makes me feel so merry now that I could take myown head in my hands and kiss it heartily. "

"It is a premonition of the triumph of your Churls. "

"Don't remind me of that. I know what awaits me. But I must now bidfarewell to you. "

"Aren't you going to escort me home?"

"No . . . Oh well, all right, but I warn you I will talk to youabout . . . Love!" he cried gayly. 

"Well, in that case, good-by! May God preserve you from suchfalsehoods. "

"Your ears must have surfeited on that rubbish, if the very mentionof it nauseates you. . . . "

"Go now if you wish . . . I will tell you about it some othertime. . . . "

Glogowski leaped into a hack and drove away in haste toward ComelyStreet and Janina went home. 

She tried on the peasant costume which Mme. Anna was making for herappearance and thought with a smile of the alliance that she hadformed with Glogowski. 

At the theater it was evident that a premiere was to be given. Allthe members of the company appeared earlier, dressed and made upmore carefully than usual and only Krzykiewicz, as was his custom, paraded about the dressing-room and the stage half-dressed with hisrouge pot in his hand. 

Stanislawski, who when he played, usually came about two hoursbefore the performance, was already dressed and only now and thenadded an extra touch to his make-up. 

Wawrzecki, with his role in his hand paced up and down thedressing-room rehearsing in an undertone. 

The stage-director ran about more swiftly than usual and in theladies' dressing-room livelier quarrels were going on. Everyone wasmore nervous to-day. The prompter supervised the stage arrangementsand watched the public that was beginning to fill the hall. Thechorus girls, who were to act as supers, were already dressed intheir peasant costumes and straggled all about the stage. 

"Dobek!" called Majkowska. "My dear fellow, only support mewell! . . . I know my part, but in the second act slip me the wordsof that monologue a little louder. "

Dobek nodded his head and had not yet returned to his post when Glasaccosted him. 

"Dobek! Will you have a drink of whisky, eh? Perhaps you'd like asandwich?" he asked the prompter in a solicitous tone. 

"To the sandwich add a beer, " answered Dobek, smiling blissfully. 

"My good fellow, don't fail me! I really know my part to-day, butI'm likely to get stuck here and there . . . "

"Well, well! only don't lie down yourself and you can be sure Iwon't let you perish. "

And in this way, every other minute some actor or actress wouldapproach Dobek, who solemnly promised to "uphold" them all. 

"Dobek! I need only the first words of each line . . . Remember!"reminded Topolski at the very last. 

Glogowski strayed about the stage, himself set up the interior ofthe peasants' hut, gave instructions to the actors and uneasilyscanned the first row of seats occupied by the representatives ofthe press. 

"It will be warm for me to-morrow!" he whispered to himself, andbegan to walk about feverishly, for he was unable to stand or sitstill in one spot. Finally, he went out into the garden-hall, stoodleaning against a chestnut tree and watched with beating heart thefirst act of his play which had just begun. 

The audience sat coldly and quietly listening. An oppressive silencefilled the hall. Glogowski saw hundreds of eyes and immovable heads, he even saw the restaurant waiters standing on chairs beneath theveranda, watching the stage. The voices of the actors resoundeddistinctly, floating out to that dark, densely packed mass ofpeople. 

Glogowski sat down in the darkest corner behind the scenes on a heapof decorations, covered his face with his hands and listened. 

Scene followed scene, and still that same ominous silence reigned. Glogowski was unable to sit there quietly! He heard the baritonevoice of Topolski, the soprano of Majkowska and the somewhat hoarsevoice of Glas, but it was not that which he wished to hear. Notthat! He bit his fingers so violently that tears came to his eyesfrom the pain. 

The first act ended. 

A few lukewarm handclaps broke out here and there and died awayagain in the general silence. 

Glogowski sprang up and with craning neck and feverishly gleamingeyes waited, but he heard only the thump of the falling curtain andthe buzz of voices suddenly rising in the hall. 

During the intermission he again observed the public. Their faceswore a strange expression. The members of the press frowned, andwhispered something among themselves, while certain of them madenotes. 

"I feel cold!" whispered Glogowski to himself, shaking as thoughwith an icy chill. And he began to stray distractedly all about thetheater. 

"I congratulate you!" said Kotlicki, pressing Glogowski's hand. "Theplay is too severe and brutal, but it is something new!"

"Which means neither fish nor flesh!" answered Glogowski with aforced smile. 

"We'll see how it will be further on. . . . The public is surprisedto see a folk play without dances. . . . "

"What the devil do they want! It is not a ballet!" mutteredGlogowski impatiently. 

"But you know they dote on songs and dances. "

"Then let them go to a vaudeville show!" retorted Glogowski. And hewalked away. 

After the second act the applause was louder and more prolonged. 

In the dressing-rooms the humor of the actors began to rise to itsusual level. 

Cabinski had already twice sent Wicek to the box office to find outhow things were going there. Gold's first reply was: "Good, " and hissecond: "Sold out. "

Glogowski continued to torment himself, but now in a different way, for having heard the applause for which he had so feverishly waited, he had calmed himself a bit and sat behind the scenes watching theplay. Now he became pale with anger, kicked his hat with his footand hissed with impatience, for he could no longer endure what hesaw. Out of his peasant characters, which were in every inch true tolife, they were making banal figures of the sentimental melodrama, puppets dressed in folk costumes. The playing of the men actors wasat least to some extent bearable, but the women, with the exceptionof Majkowska and Mirowska, who acted the part of an old beggarwoman, played abominably. Instead of speaking their parts, theyrattled them off in a singsong voice, and over-emphasized hatred, love, and laughter. Everything was done so mechanically, artificially, and thoughtlessly, without a grain of truth orsincerity that Glogowski fairly choked with despair. It was merely amasquerade. 

"Sharper! More energetically!" he whispered, stamping his foot, butno one paid any attention to his exhortations. 

Suddenly, a smile flitted over his lips, for he saw Janina enteringthe stage. She caught that smile and that saved her, for her voicehad died in her breast. She was trembling from stage fright so thatshe did not see the stage, nor the actors, nor the public; it seemedto her that she was engulfed in a sea of light. When she saw thatfriendly smile she immediately recovered her calm and courage. 

Janina was merely to grasp a broom, take her drunken husband by thecollar, shout a few lines of imprecation and complaint and then draghim out forcibly through the door. She did all this a trifle tooviolently, but with such realism that she gave the impression of aninfuriated peasant woman. 

Glogowski went to Janina. She stood on the stairs leading to thedressing-room; her eyes beamed with a certain deep satisfaction. 

"Very good! . . . That was a real peasant woman. You have atemperament and a voice and those are two first-rate endowments!"said Glogowski, and tip-toed back to his seat. 

"Perhaps we ought to give an encore of that scene?" whisperedCabinski into his ear. 

"Dry up and go to the devil!" answered Glogowski in the same quietwhisper and felt a great desire to strike Cabinski. But just then, anew thought occurred to his mind, for he saw the nurse standingnearby. 

"Nurse!" he called to her. 

The nurse unwillingly approached Glogowski. 

"Tell me, nurse, what do you think of that comedy?" he asked hercuriously. 

"The title is very unpolitic . . . 'churls'! Everyone knows thatpeasants are not nobles, but to call them by such a scornful namefor the amusement of others is a downright sin!"

"Well, that is of minor importance . . . But do you think thosecharacters resemble real peasants?"

"Yes, you have hit upon the real thing. Peasants are just like that, only they don't dress so elegantly, nor are they so refined in theirbearing and speech. But pardon me, sir, if I say one thing; what'sthe use of it all? Present, if you wish, nobles, Jews, or any otherkind of ragamuffins, but to make a laughing-stock and a comedy ofhonest tillers of the soil is a downright shame! God is like topunish you for such frivolity! A husbandman is a husbandman . . . Beware of trifling with him!" she added in conclusion and continuedto gaze at the stage with an ever greater severity and almost withtears of indignation in her eyes. 

Glogowski had no time to wonder at her attitude for just then thethird act ended amid thunderous applause and calls for the author, but he did not go out to bow. 

A few journalists came to shake hands with him and praise his play. He listened to them indifferently, for already his mind was occupiedwith a plan for remaking that play. Now first did he see in detailits various inconsistencies and the things that were lacking, andimmediately completed them in his mind, added new scenes, changedabout situations and was so absorbed with his task that he no longerpaid any attention to how they were playing the fourth act. 

Again applause filled the entire hall and the unanimous cry of:"Author! Author!"

"They're calling for you, go out to them, " someone whispered intoGlogowski's ear. 

"The deuce I will! Go to the devil, sweet brother!"

Majkowska and Topolski were also being recalled. 

Majkowska, all breathless, ran up to Glogowski. 

"Mr. Glogowski! come, hurry!" she cried, taking him by the hand. 

"Let me alone!" he growled threateningly. 

Majkowska left him and Glogowski sat there and continued to think. Neither the applause, nor the demands for his appearance nor thesuccess of his play interested him any longer, for he was sorelyworried by the knowledge that his play was entirely bad. He saw itsdefects ever more plainly and the knowledge that another one of hisefforts had proved vain made him writhe with pain. With helplessrage he listened to the public applauding the rude and characteristicallycomic episodes which were merely the background upon which thesouls of his Churls had to be outlined, while the theme and thesis of theplay itself passed without making any impression. 

"Mr. Glogowski I want you to go out after the fifth act if they callfor you, " Janina said to him decisively. 

"But please consider, who is calling for me! Don't you see that itis the gallery? Don't you see the smiles of derision upon the facesof the press and the public in the first rows of seats? I tell youthe play is bad, abominable and rotten! Wait and see what they willwrite about it to-morrow. "

"What will happen to-morrow we shall see to-morrow. To-day there issuccess and your splendid play. "

"Splendid!" he cried painfully. "If you could see the plan of itthat I have here in my head, if you could see how splendid andcomplete it is here, you would know that what they are playing ismerely a poor rag and a fragment. "

Immediately afterwards Cabinski, Topolski, and Kotlicki approachedGlogowski and urged him to appear before the public, but still heresisted. Only at the end of the play when the entire audience waswildly applauding and calling for the author, Glogowski went out onthe stage with Majkowska, bowed ostentatiously, smoothed his shockof hair and clumsily retreated behind the scenes. 

"If the play had dances, songs, and music, I wager it would run tothe end of the season, " said Cabinski. 

"Dry up, or drink yourself to death, but do not tell me suchnonsense, " shouted Glogowski. "The next thing you know, therestaurant-keeper will come running in here and begin to berate mebecause for the same reasons he sold less beer and whiskey; a publicthat must listen and laughs seldom prefers hot tea. "

"But my dear sir, nobody writes plays for himself, he writes themfor other human beings. "

"Yes, for human beings, but not for Zulus, " retorted Glogowski. 

Kotlicki again approached Glogowski and spoke to him for a longwhile. Glogowski frowned and said: "First of all, I haven't themoney for it, for it would cost a great deal and, in the secondplace, I am not at all anxious to be 'one of our well-known andcelebrated, ' for that is a prostitution of one's talent!"

"I can be of service to you with my funds, if you wish. . . . Ipresume that our old ties of companionship at school . . . "

"Let us drop that! . . . " Glogowski violently interrupted him. "Butthat has given me a certain idea . . . Suppose we arrange a littlesupper, but only for a few persons, eh?"

"Good! we will draw up a list right away; Mr. And Mrs. Cabinski, Majkowska and Topolski, Mimi and Wawrzecki and Glas, as anentertainer, of course. Whom else shall we include?"

Kotlicki wished to suggest Janina, but was restrained from saying soopenly. 

"Aha! I know . . . Miss Orlowska . . . The Filipka of my play! Didyou see how superbly she acted the part?"

"Indeed, she played it well . . . " answered Kotlicki, glancingsuspiciously at Glogowski, for he thought that he also had designsupon Janina. 

"Go and invite them. I will come right away. "

Kotlicki went out into the restaurant garden, while Glogowskihurried upstairs to the chorus dressing-room and called through thedoor: "Miss Orlowska!"

Janina peered out. 

"Please hurry and get dressed for the whole crowd of us is going outfor supper and you can't refuse. "

About a half hour later they were all sitting in a room of one ofthe large restaurants on Nowy Swiat. 

The whiskey and lunch were attacked energetically for the nervousstrain of the last few hours had sharpened everybody's appetite. They spoke little, but drank a great deal. 

Janina did not wish to drink, but Glogowski begged her and criedout: "You must drink and that settles it. You must drink, if only tocelebrate such an honorable burial as we have held to-day. "

She drank one glass on trial, but afterwards was forced to drinkothers; moreover, she felt that it helped her, for she had not yetrid herself of stage nervousness and was trembling about the fate ofthe play. 

After various courses had been served, the waiters placed on thetable a whole battery of bottles full of wines and liqueurs. 

"Now we'll have something to fight with!" cried Glas jovially, tinkling a bottle with his knife. 

"You will fall a victim to your own triumph, if you continue toattack with the same fervor, " laughed Wawrzecki. 

"You people can talk, while we drink!" called Kotlicki, raising hisglass. "Here's to the health of our author!"

"May you choke, you Zulu!" growled Glogowski, rising and touchingglasses with everybody. 

"May he live long and write a new masterpiece each year!" criedCabinski, already quite tipsy. 

"You, Director, also create masterpieces almost every year, yet noone upbraids you for it, " jested Glas. 

"With the help of God and man, gentlemen, yes, yes!" answeredCabinski. 

Mimi burst out laughing and all joined her. 

"Come let me hug you! For once you do not lie!" cried Glas. 

Pepa almost died laughing. 

"Here's to the health of Mr. And Mrs. Director!" called Wawrzecki. 

"May they live long and with the help of God and man create moremasterpieces!"

"Here's to the health of the whole company!"

"And now let us drink to the public. "

"Permit me to interrupt you a moment. Since I alone here representthe public, therefore render homage to me. Approach me with respectand drink to me. You may even kiss me and ask me for some favor. Iwill consider your request and bestow whatever I am able to!" criedKotlicki gleefully. 

He took a glass from the table, stood before a mirror and waited. 

"Can you beat that for conceit! I will be the first to undergo theordeal!" cried Glogowski, and with brimming glass, already a bitwobbly on his pins he approached Kotlicki. 

"Most esteemed and gracious lady! I give you plays written with myheart's blood; only understand and value them justly!" he declaimedwith mock pathos, kissing Kotlicki's face. 

"If you, oh master, will write them for me, if you will not offendme with brutalities, if you will reckon with me and write for mealone so that I can enjoy and entertain myself, then I will give yousuccess!"

"First I will kick you and may you croak!" hissed Glogowskibitterly. 

Cabinski approached next. 

"Most esteemed public! You are the sun, you are beauty, you areomnipotence, you are wisdom, you are the highest judge! Yours arethese children of Melpomene and for you do they live, play, andsing! Tell me, oh mighty lady, why are you not kind to us? I entreatyou, oh enlightened one, give us each day a full theater!"

"My dear! Have a little money when you come to Warsaw, have a largerepertoire, a select company, beautiful choruses and give thoseplays which I like and your treasury will be bursting with gold. "

"Esteemed public!" cried Glas, with a comical pathos, kissingKotlicki's beard. 

"Speak!" said Kotlicki. 

"Esteemed female! Give me some money and then have your head shaved, a yellow jacket put on you and green paper pasted about you and wewill see that you are sent where you belong. "

"I can't promise you money, but I assure you, you'll get . . . Delirium tremens, my son . . . " answered Kotlicki!

"Topolski, it's your turn!"

"Give me a rest! I have enough of your puppet shows. "

Cabinska also did not wish to take part in the amusement, but Mimibowed comically and stroked Kotlicki's face. 

"My dear! my precious public!" she entreated in caressing tones. "Keep Wladek from continually falling in love with some new charmerand . . . See, I could make use of a bracelet, then a green suit forthe fall, some furs for the winter and . . . See that the directorpays me my salary. "

"You will get what you wish, for you desired it sincerely, and hereis the address. "

He handed her his visiting card. 

"Fine! Bravo!" cried the company. 

"Miss Majkowska may now approach, for I promise her a great deal inadvance, " announced Kotlicki. 

"You are an old deceiver, dear public! You promise continually, butyou never give me what you promise!" said Mela. 

"I will give you . . . In a year from now a debut at the WarsawTheater and surely engage you. "

Majkowska shrugged her shoulders indifferently and sat down. 

"Miss Orlowska!"

Janina arose; she felt a trifle dizzy but at the same time she wasso jolly and the game appeared so comical to her, that sheapproached Kotlicki and called out in an entreating tone: "I desireonly one thing: to be able to play. I ask only to be given roles. "

"We shall speak about that with the director and you will get them. "

"Let us quit that, for it is getting wearisome, Kotlicki! Come overhere, we are starting the second round of drinks. "

They began to drink in earnest. The room became full of buzzingvoices and cigarette smoke. Each of the assembled company argued andpersuaded separately, and everyone shouted nonsense. 

Majkowska leaned with her elbows upon the table and, beating timewith a knife against a bottle of champagne, sang gayly. 

The directress argued loudly with Mimi. Topolski was silent anddrank to himself alone. Wawrzecki was relating various funnyanecdotes to Janina, while Glogowski, Glas, and Kotlicki wereengaged in a controversy about the public. 

Janina laughed and bickered with Wawrzecki, but already the wine hadtaken such an effect upon her that she hardly knew what she wasdoing. The room whirled around with her and the candles elongatedthemselves to the size of torches. Once she would feel a mad desireto dance, then again to launch bottles like ducks into the largemirrors which appeared to be water to her; or again, she tried hardto understand what Glogowski was just then saying. Glogowski, allflushed and tipsy, with disheveled hair and with his necktie on hisback, was shouting, waving his hands, striking his fist againstGlas's stomach instead of the table. 

Glogowski shouted on: "To the dogs with the public's judgment! Itell you the play is bad! And if the audience applauded it and younow praise it, that is the best proof that I am right. There were athousand of you; it is so hard for a thousand people to agree uponthe truth. The individual alone is a thinking man, but the multitudeis an ignorant herd that knows nothing. "

"The multitude is a great man, proclaims an old proverb, " whisperedKotlicki sententiously. 

"It proclaims nonsense! The multitude is nothing but a big noise, abig illusion, a big hallucination, " retorted Glogowski. 

"Master, you seem to be devilishly sure of yourself. "

"Dilettante, I merely know myself. "

"By ginger! so many crazes in such a weak box!" whispered Glas, feeling Glogowski's chest. 

"Genius does not abide in meat. A fat man is merely a fat animal. Alofty soul abhors fat. A healthy stomach and normality denote merelythe average mortal and the average mortal is nothing but a boor. "

"And such paradoxes are merely chaff. "

"For asses and pseudo-intelligentsia. "

"Dixit, brother! The Rhenish speaks through your lips. "

"Begin all over again!" interrupted Glas, grabbing them both aroundthe neck. 

"If it is to drink, good; if it is to talk, I'll say good night!"yelled Kotlicki. 

"Then let us drink!"

"Wawrzecki, dog's face! Get Mimi and another girl and we'll arrangea little chorus. "

They immediately got together and intoned a gay song. Only Glogowskidid not sing, for he leaned against Cabinski and fell fast asleepand Janina's head was so heavy that she could not utter a singletone. 

The singing continued with increasing gayety, while Janina felt anirresistible drowsiness overpowering her, felt herself reeling fromher chair. 

Later she was half-conscious of someone supporting her, coveringher, leading her and felt that she was riding in a hack. She feltsomething near her which she could not make out, felt a hot breathon her face, and arms stealing about her waist; she heard the rumbleof wheels and with difficulty distinguished a voice whispering intoher ear: "I love you, I love you!" but she could not understand whatit all meant. 

Suddenly she trembled, for she felt hot kisses upon her mouth. Shesprang up violently and recovered her senses. 

Kotlicki was sitting beside her, holding her about the waist andkissing her. She wanted to shove him away from her, but her handsdropped heavily to her side; she wanted to scream out loud, but hadno strength left; drowsiness overpowered her again and threw herinto a lethargy, as it were. 

Finally, the hack stopped and the sudden silence awakened her. Shesaw that she was standing on the sidewalk and that Kotlicki wasringing the doorbell of some house. 

"God! God!" she whispered in bewilderment, unable to understandwhere she was. 

Only then did Janina realize everything in a flash when Kotlickidrew close to her and whispered sweetly: "Come!"

She tore herself away from him with the force of great fear. Hetried to put his arm about her again but she shoved him back withsuch violence that he went hurtling against the wall and then sheran as though bereft of her senses, for it seemed to her that he waspursuing, that he was already catching up with her and ready toseize her. Her heart beat like a trip hammer and her face burnedwith shame and terror. 

"God! God!" she breathed, running ever faster. 

The streets were deserted and she was frightened by the sound of herown footsteps, by the hacks that she met at the street corners, bythe shadows that fell from the house walls and by that awful stonysilence of the sleeping city in which there seemed to tremble soundsof weeping, sobs, and some horrible, dissolute laughter and drunkencries that made her shudder. She paused in the shadow of a doorway, looked about her in terror, and gradually remembered all that hadhappened: the play, the supper, how she had drunk, the singing andhow someone was again forcing her to drink; and amid all thoseconfused fragments of her memory there appeared the long equine faceof Kotlicki, the ride in the hack, and his kisses!

"The vile wretch! The vile wretch!" she whispered to herself, recovering herself entirely; and she clenched her fists until thenails dug into her flesh, so violent a wave of anger and hatredsurged through her. She was choking with tears of helplessness andsuch humiliation that she sobbed spasmodically as she returned home. 

It was already dawning. 

Sowinska opened the door for her and grumbled in irritation: "Youshould have come home earlier, instead of waking people at this hourof the night. "

Janina did not answer, bowing her head as under a blow. 

"The base wretches! The base wretches!" That was the one cry thatarose in her heart, filled with rebellion and hatred. 

Janina no longer felt the shame and the humiliation, but only aboundless rage. She ran about the room as though she were mad, unknowingly ripped her waist and, unable to control her fury, fellexhausted upon her bed with her clothes on. 

Her sleep was one dreadful torment. She sprang up every minute witha cry as though to run away, then again, she raised her hand asthough with a glass full of wine and shouted through her sleep:Vive! She would begin to sing or to cry every now and then with herfeverish lips: "The base wretches! The base wretches!"

CHAPTER IX

In a few days after the premiere of The Churls, which remained uponthe bill, but attracted ever smaller audiences, Glogowski came toJanina's home. 

"What is the matter with you? . . . " she exclaimed, extending herhand in friendly greeting. 

"Nothing. . . . Well, I improved my play a little. Did you read thecriticisms?"

"Some of them. "

"I have brought all the reviews, " said Glogowski. "I'll read them. "

He began to read. 

One of the important weeklies maintained that The Churls was a verygood, original, and superbly realistic play; that with Glogowskithere had, at last, appeared a real dramatist who had let a currentof fresh air into the stagnant and anaemic atmosphere of ourdramatic creativity, and had given us real people and real life. Theonly cause for regret was that the staging of the play was beneathcriticism and the acting of it, with one or two exceptions, scandalous. 

The reviewer of one of the most estimable dailies for two whole daysrambled on in a special supplement about the history of the theaterin France and about German actors, he discussed theatrical noveltiesand after every two paragraphs or so would remark in parenthesis: "Isaw him at the Odeon, " "I heard this at the Burg Theater" "I admiredsuch acting in London, " etc. Then he adduced various theatricalanecdotes, praised actors who had died half a century ago, harkedback to the past of the stage, spoke in several paragraphs about thered rags of radicalism that had begun to appear on the stage, praised with paternal indulgence the actors appearing in The Churls, flattered Cabinski and wound up by saying that he would probablygive his opinion of the play itself only after the author hadwritten another one, for this one was merely to be forgiven anovice. 

A third reviewer contended that the play was not at all bad andwould even be excellent, if the author had chosen to honortheatrical traditions and added music and dances to it. 

A fourth took a diametrically opposite viewpoint, maintaining thatthe play was positively worthless, that it was rubbish, but that theauthor possessed at least the one merit that he had avoided the cutand dried formulas by failing to introduce the usual songs anddances which always lower the value of folk plays. 

In the fifth review a "specialist" on garden-theaters wrote about ahundred paragraphs somewhat to this effect: "The Churls by Mr. Glogowski hm! . . . Not a bad thing . . . It would even be entirelygood . . . But . . . Although, considering again . . . At anyrate . . . One must have the courage to tell the truth. . . . At allevents . . . Be that as it may . . . (with a little qualifyingphrase) the author has a talent. The play is . . . Hm . . . Let ussee, how can we define it? About two months ago I wrote somethingabout it, so I refer those that are interested to my formerarticle. . . . They played it excellently, " and he enumerated theentire cast, placing beside the name of each actress a sugaryepithet, and an ingratiating remark, a polite description, amelancholy equivocation and an empty phrase. 

"What do you call all that?" inquired Janina. 

"A libretto for an operetta. Entitle it Theatrical Criticisms andset it to music and you will have such a show that the whole nationwill flock to it as to a church festival. "

"And what answer did you give to all that?"

"I? . . . Nothing, of course! I merely turned my back on them and, since I have a splendid plan for a new play, I shall immediatelystart working on it. I have received a job as a dramatic coach atRadomsk and I shall go there for a half year. I am only waiting forthe final notification. "

"Is it absolutely necessary for you to go?"

"Yes, I must! Dramatic coaching is my only means of support. For twomonths I have been without any occupation and now I am penniless. Ipresented the play at my own expense, paid my respects to thepublic, had a good time at Warsaw and now it is time to quit! It istime to ring down the curtain so that I may prepare for anotherfarce. Goodbye, Miss Janina. Before I leave, I'll drop in here or atthe theater. "

He shook hands with her, exclaimed, "May the deuce take me!" andhurried away. 

Janina was sad. She had become so accustomed to Glogowski, to hiseccentricities, paradoxes, and to that rough and ready manner whichwas merely a screen for his shyness and hypersensitive delicacy thatregret filled her at the thought that she was now to remain alone. 

She had no more money left and was living solely on what shereceived at the theater. Janina dared not admit it to herself, butwith each new request for money she would be reminded of her homeand of those times when it was unnecessary for her to think ofanything, for she had all she needed. She felt deeply humiliated bythis almost daily begging for a few meager copecks, but there was noway out of it, unless it was the one that she constantly read in thegray eyes of Sowinska and saw exemplified in the life of hercompanions. 

Almost each evening Janina would stroll on Theater Place. If she wasin a great hurry, she would only pass through the place, get aglimpse of the Grand Theater and return home again, but if she hadplenty of time she would find a seat on the square or on a benchnear the tramcar station and from there gaze at the rows of columns, at the lofty profile of the theater's facade and lose herself indreaming. She somehow felt that those walls drew her irresistibly tothem. She experienced moments of deep delight when passing under thecolonnade, or when in the calm of a bright night she viewed the longgray mass of the edifice. That huge stone giant seemed to speak toher and she would listen to the whispers, the echoes, and the soundsthat floated from it. Spread out before her in the dim twilight andvisible to her soul alone, there would pass before her imaginationthe scenes that were acted there not long ago. 

An additional reason for losing herself in dreams was to dull thepinch of poverty, that had become more acute, for the second half ofthe theatrical season, from a financial standpoint, was a great dealworse than the first. The attendance was increasingly smallerbecause of the continual rains and the cold evenings and, of course, the pay of the actors was proportionately smaller. 

It often happened that Cabinski in the middle of a performance wouldtake the cash box and make away with it under the pretext that hewas ill, leaving only a few rubles to be divided among the companyand, if he was caught before he made his escape, he would almostcry. 

And if he led anyone by the arm in a friendly manner to the boxoffice it was a prearranged sign for Gold, who was to say that therewas no money to be had. If he did not lead a person in this manner, the treasurer would assume a worried look and complain: "I haven'teven enough to pay the gas bills and where am I going to get themoney for the rent? Why, there isn't enough to pay runningexpenses. "

"Let him have at least something. Perhaps we can put off the paymentof some bill to-day . . . " Cabinski would pretend to intercede. 

He would then leave an order for the payment of the money and walkaway. But it almost always so happened that Gold did not have thesum for which the order was made out. The amount paid was alwaysshort, even if it were only by a few copecks. The actors called himall sorts of names, but each took what was offered. 

Gold pretended to be insulted and usually appealed to thedirectress, who would always sit in the box office whenever she wasnot taking part in the play. Cabinska would then sharply reproachthe actors and loudly praise the honesty of Gold, who with the smallsalary that he received helped his sister, in addition to supportinghimself. Gold would beam with joy at the remembrance of his sister;his eyes would flash with tenderness and at such moments he wouldfervently promise to pay the missing amount on the following daywithout fail; but he never paid. 

The performances were rattled off to get through with them, for thegeneral disorder caused by Cabinski's over-thieveries was growingever greater and, moreover, the nearness of the departure forWarsaw, the debts in which all were swamped, the approach of winterand the worry over securing new engagements did not put anyone in amood for playing. 

And all the while Cabinski, kissed everyone and promised to pay, butnever did so. He knew how to arrange matters so skillfully and actedso excellently the part of a man worried about the welfare ofeveryone that Janina feeling his troubles and believing him, oftenlacked the courage to remind him of the money he owed her. Moreover, she knew that between the director and his wife there went on acontinual battle over expenses and that the nurse often boughtvarious things for the children out of her own savings, whileCabinska would sit twice as long at the pastry shop to avoid hearingthe complaints. 

Slowly, but in an ever narrowing circle, poverty hemmed Janina inand clouded her face with ceaseless worry. 

Janina suffered all the more in her present condition because shewas unable to seclude herself from other people as she used to do atBukowiec after every quarrel with her father. She could not ravewith the gales and calm herself inwardly by sheer physicalexhaustion. She tramped about the city but everywhere she met toomany people. She would have gladly confided to Glogowski all thattroubled her, but had not the courage to do so, for she wasrestrained by pride. Glogowski seemed to guess her condition, or atleast her worries, and would often remind her that she ought to tellhim everything . . . Everything. But she did not do so. 

She stayed at home as little as possible, and whenever she enteredthe house she tried to do it so quietly that no one might hear her. It was not the possibility that she might find herself thrown outinto the street on the morrow that frightened her, but the fact thatMme. Anna or Sowinska might say to her curtly: "Pay what you oweme. "

But that moment finally arrived. While eating her dinner Janina knewthe inevitable had come. She caught just one glance of Mme. Anna'seyes while she was serving the soup and in them read everything. 

After the meal, which to Janina had been torture, Mme. Anna followedher immediately and, in the most unconcerned manner, began to relatesomething about a fantastic customer. Then, suddenly, as though shehad remembered something, she said: "Oh yes, I almost forgot!Perhaps you will let me have that half-month's rent, for I must paythe landlord to-day. "

"I haven't the money to-day . . . " she wanted to add something else, but her voice failed her. 

"What do you mean? Please give me what you owe me! I hope you don'tthink that I can feed anyone free of charge . . . Just for fun, orfor the sake of having them as an ornament in my home! A fineornament indeed, that stays up all night and comes home only in thewee hours of the morning!"

"You needn't fear that I won't pay you!" cried Janina suddenlyaroused. 

"I need the money right away!"

"You will have it . . . In an hour!" answered Janina, making somesudden determination; she glanced with such scorn at Mme. Anna thatthe latter left without a word, slamming the door after her. 

From her companions Janina had heard something about the pawnshopand she immediately went there to pawn her gold bracelet, the onlyone that she possessed. 

On returning home she immediately paid Mme. Anna, who was surprised, but not very polite. 

Having done that Janina added: "I will have my meals at therestaurant; I don't want to trouble you. "

"Just as you like. If things here don't suit you, you are free to doas you please!" whispered the deeply humiliated Mme. Anna. 

By that one act Janina incurred the enmity of the whole house. 

"I will sell everything I possess . . . Even to the last button!"she said to herself with bitter resolve. 

And Janina calculated that for one half of what she had been payingMme. Anna she could get all the food that she needed. Wolskadirected her to a cheap lunch-room and she went there for herdinners; when she had not money enough for that, a roll with asardine had to suffice her for the entire day. 

But one day the theater was closed, for there were only twentyrubles in the treasury; on the following day the performance waspostponed because of a heavy downpour. Janina, like everyone else, did not receive a single copeck from Cabinski and during those twodays had absolutely nothing to eat. 

This first hunger which she could not appease because she hadnothing to appease it with had a fearful effect upon her. She feltwithin herself a strange and unceasing pain. 

"Starvation! Starvation!" Janina whispered to herself in terror. 

Hitherto she had known it by its name only. Now she wondered at thatsensation of hunger within her. It seemed strange to her that shefelt like eating and hadn't the money even to buy herself a roll!

"Is it possible that I have nothing to eat?" Janina asked herself. 

From the kitchen there was wafted to her the smell of frying meat. She shut the door tightly for that smell nauseated her. 

Janina remembered with a strange emotion that the majority of greatartists in various ages also suffered poverty and hunger. Thethought consoled her for a while. She felt as though she wereanointed with the first pang of martyrdom for art's sake. 

She smiled in the mirror with a melancholy look at her yellowish andworn face. She tried to read to rid herself, as it were, of her ownpersonality, but she could not, for she constantly felt that growinghunger. 

She gazed out of the window at the long yard surrounded on all sidesby the high windows of the adjoining houses, but she saw how in afew houses people were sitting down to the table and saw the workmenin the yard also eating their dinner from small clay pots. Shequickly drew back from the window for she felt hunger like a steelhand with sharp claws tearing her even more violently. 

"Everybody is eating!" Janina said to herself as though this was thefirst time that she had taken note of that fact. 

Later she lay down and slept until the evening without going eitherto the rehearsal or to Cabinska's home, but she felt even weakerupon awaking and had a painful dizziness in her head, while thatkeen and constant sapping sensation within herself tormented her sothat she wept. 

In the evening in the dressing-room a boisterous gayety possessedJanina; she laughed continually, joked and made fun of hercompanions quarreled over some trifle with Mimi and then flirtedfrom the stage with the occupants of the front row of seats. 

When the counselor appeared behind the scenes right after the firstact with a box of candy, Janina greeted him joyously and pressed hishand so tightly that the old man became confused. Afterwards she satdown in some dark corner, waiting for the stage-director to cry:"Enter!" When the darkness and silence enveloped her, she broke intoconvulsive sobbing. 

After the performance Janina received a quadruple payment on accounttwo whole rubles. Cabinski gave them to her himself in secret sothat the others might not see it. 

Janina went out for supper on the veranda and became intoxicatedwith one glass of whiskey so that she herself requested Wladek toescort her home. 

From that evening Wladek followed her like a shadow and beganopenly to show her his love, paying no attention to the fact thathis mother was asking everybody in the theater about him andconstantly tracking both him and Janina. 

One day Glogowski came rushing into Janina's home and cried outalready from the doorway: "Well, I have come back again to myZulus! . . . "

He flung his hat on a trunk, sat on the bed and began to roll acigarette. 

Janina gazed at him calmly and thought how strange it was that thecoming of this friend who had interested her so deeply in the pastshould now leave her so indifferent. 

"So you do not weep with joy at seeing me again, eh? Ha! I'll haveto resign myself to it. No doubt the dogs alone will weep over me!May the deuce take me! But don't you happen to know what is thematter with Kotlicki? He does not come to the theater any more and Ican't find him anywhere. He must have journeyed somewhere. "

"I have not seen him since the night of that supper, " answeredJanina slowly. 

"There must be some reason for his disappearance! Probably someadventure, some love affair, some . . . But why should I botherabout such a green monkey, eh? Isn't that true?"

"Indeed it is!" whispered Janina, turning her face toward thewindow. 

"Oh! and what does that mean?" he cried, glancing sharply into hereyes. "Goodness, how you have changed! Sunken and glassy eyes, yellowish complexion, sharpened features. . . . What does it allmean?" he asked in a quieter tone. 

Suddenly he struck his hand to his forehead and began to run up anddown the room like a maniac. 

"What an idiot I am. What a monster! Here I am parading aboutWarsaw, while here real, artistic poverty has quartered itself inearnest! Miss Janina, " he cried, taking her hand and lookingsteadily into her eyes, "Miss Janina! I want you to tell meeverything as at confession. May the deuce take me, but you musttell me!"

Janina was silent; but seeing his honest face and hearing thatsympathetic voice whose accents had a strange way of gripping one'sheart, she suddenly felt overcome by feeling, and tears stood in hereyes. She could not speak for emotion. 

"Well, well, there's no use crying, for I shall depart anyway, " hesaid jokingly to hide his own emotion. "Now, just listen to me . . . But without any protests or loud opposition, for I detestparliamentarism! I see you are in poverty and theatrical poverty inthe bargain. . . . Well, I happen to know what it's like. Now, forgoodness' sake, stop blushing. Poverty that is honestly acquired isnot anything to be ashamed of! It's nothing but an ordinary smallpoxwhich all people who are worth anything in this world have to passthrough. Ho! ho! I have been playing blindman's buff with troublessince many a year! Well, I shall end what I am saying in a gallop. Let us do this . . . "

He turned around, took from his pocketbook thirty rubles, that is, all the money that had been sent him for his journey, placed itunder Janina's pillow and returned to his former seat. 

"'Now we are agreed, are we not, my cousin . . . ' said Louis XIafter beheading the Duke of Anjou. I will accept no appeal and ifyou dare to . . . "

He grasped his hat and extending his hand, said softly: "Good-bye, Miss Janina. "

With a desperate motion, Janina hastily barred the door with herbody. 

"No, no! Do not humiliate me! I am unfortunate enough as it is, " shewhispered, firmly holding his hand. 

"There you have a woman's philosophy! May the deuce take me, butthat which I did is as natural as the fact that I will some day blowout my brains and that you will become a great actress!"

Janina began to expostulate with him, and finally to urge him totake back his money, saying that she did not need it, that she wouldnot accept it, and showing a deep aversion to being helped. 

Glogowski became gloomy and said roughly: "What! May the deuce takeme, but of the two of us I certainly am not the fool! But no! Irefuse to get provoked about it. I shall sit down calmly and talk itover with you seriously. I don't want you to get angry at me oversuch an empty thing as money. You don't want to take it, althoughyou need it, and why? Because a false shame deters you, because youhave been taught that such simple human things as helping oneanother lowers one's pride. Such conceptions are already becomingputrid. To the museum with them! Those are foolish and evilprejudices. May the deuce take me, but it requires a European brainand hysterical subtlety to hesitate to accept money from a humanbeing like yourself when you are in need. Why and to what purpose doyou think the human herd unites itself into some form of society? Isit mutually to devour and rob one another or mutually to help oneanother? I know you will tell me that it is otherwise, but I answeryou that that is precisely why we have so much evil in this world. And once we recognize a thing as evil we ought to shun it. Man oughtto do good. That is his duty. To do good is the wisest mathematics. But Great Scott! What's the use of my making so much ado about it!"he cried in irritation. 

He continued to speak for a long while yet, scoffed, sworeoccasionally, shouted: "May the deuce take me, " and raged fiercely, but in his voice there was so much sincere and deep friendliness, such heartfelt kindness, that Janina, although she was not at allconvinced, accepted his proffered aid with a grateful handclasp onlybecause she did not wish to offend him by refusing. 

"Well, that is what I like! And now . . . Good-bye!" he said, arising to go. 

"Good-bye! I wish to thank you once more and I am so very gratefuland obligated to you . . . " murmured Janina. 

"If you only knew how much kindness people have shown me! I wouldlike to repay only one hundredth part of it to others. I will addyet that we shall no doubt meet each other in the spring. "

"Where?" asked Janina. 

"Bah! I don't know! but that it will be in the theater of that I amsure, for I have determined to join the theater in the spring, ifonly for a half year so that I may gain a better knowledge of thestage. "

"Oh, that's an excellent idea!"

"Now we are even with one another, as my father used to say after hehad massaged my hide so that it shone as though freshly tanned. Ileave you my address and say nothing, only remind you that you areto tell me everything by letter . . . Everything! Do you give meyour word?"

"I give you my word!" Janina answered gravely. 

"I trust your word as though it were that of a man, although withwomen a word of honor is usually an empty word only, which they makeuse of, but never fulfill. Goodbye!"

Glogowski pressed both her hands firmly, raised them a little asthough he were eager to kiss them, but quickly dropped them again, glanced into her eyes, laughed a trifle unnaturally and departed. 

Janina sat thinking for a long time about him. She felt so deep agratitude toward him and felt so cheered and strengthened by hertalk with him that she regretted she did not know on what trainGlogowski was leaving, for she had a desire to see him once more. 

Then again, there arose in her something that protested loudlyagainst the aid he had given her, something that saw in thatkindness an insult. 

"Alms!" Janina whispered bitterly and felt a burning pain ofhumiliation. 

"Can't I live alone, can't I get along by my own unaided strength, can't I be sufficient unto myself? Must I continually lean onsomeone for support? Must there always be someone watching over me?The others know how to help themselves, why can't I?" she askedherself. 

Janina pondered over this, but a moment later she went to thepawnshop to redeem her bracelet and on the way bought herself aninexpensive autumn hat. 

Life dragged on for her slowly, sluggishly, and wearily. 

Janina was sustained only by the hope, or rather by a deep faiththat all this would change radically and soon, and in this longinganticipation she began to pay ever more attention to Wladek. Sheknew that he loved her. She listened almost daily to his confessionsand proposals, smiling deep within herself and thinking that inspite of all she could not become that which her companions became. Their mode of life aroused a deep aversion in her for she felt atruly organic revulsion to all forms of filth. But these attentionsof Wladek had at least this effect, that they awakened in her forthe first time conscious thoughts of love. 

She dreamed at moments of loving a man to whom she could giveherself entirely and for all time; she dreamed of a united life fullof ecstasy and love, such a love as poets presented in their plays;and then there would pass before her mind the figures of all thegreat lovers about whom she had read, passionate whispers, burningembraces, volcanic passions and that whole Titanic love life, theremembrance of which sent a tremor of delight through her. 

Janina did not know whence these dreams came, but they would visither ever more frequently in spite of the poverty which again beganto grow more distressing, and the frequent hunger that gripped heras it were in bony embrace. Her bracelet again went to the pawnshop, for she continually had to buy some new article of wear for thestage, so that often she was forced to deny herself food only to beable to buy what she needed. New plays were continually presented todraw the public but success was as far off as ever. 

Such a situation harassed and tormented Janina dreadfully, robbingher of her strength, but it also awakened a rebellion which began toseethe silently within her. She felt at first an indefinableanimosity toward everybody. She regarded with a fierce envy thewomen whom she met on the street. 

Often, she would be seized with a mad desire to stop one of thosewell-dressed ladies and ask her whether she knew what poverty was. She observed intently their faces, their clothes, and their smilesand came to the painful conclusion that these ladies could not knowthat there were other people who suffered, wept, and were hungry. But later Janina began to reason that she herself was dressed in thesame way as these other women; that there may be among them othersin the same plight as she, and that perhaps unknowingly they passedher on the way, hungry and desperate, hurling the same glances atother passers-by that she did. She tried to distinguish the faces ofsuch sufferers in the multitude, but could not. All appeared to besatisfied and happy. 

Then, something like the triumph of her own ascendancy over thiswell-dressed and well-fed multitude lit up Janina's face. She feltherself to be far superior to this world of everyday mortals. 

"I have an idea, an aim!" she thought. "What do they live for? Whatis their object in life?" she would often ask herself. And unable toanswer that question, Janina would smile pityingly at the emptinessof their existence. 

"A race of butterflies that knows not whence, nor why, nor to whatend their life has been given them!" she whispered, sating herselfto her heart's content with that silent scorn of people that wasgrowing to abnormal proportions in her. 

Cabinska, Janina now hated with her whole soul, for although Pepaalways treated her with a sugary affability, she never paid her forYadzia's piano lessons, taking advantage of Janina's situation andabilities with a hypocritical smile of friendliness. Janina couldnot sever relations with her, for she felt distinctly that behindthat mask of politeness that Pepa wore there was hidden a fury whowould not forgive her that. Furthermore, she hated Cabinska as awoman, a mother, and an actress. She had come to know her well, andmoreover, in her present period of continual strain and struggle, she had either to love or hate someone immensely. Janina did notlove anyone as yet, but already she hated. 

"Do you know it is hardly believable that such an incompetent judgeas the directress should herself assign the roles for all ourplays!" she once remarked to Wladek greatly embittered by the factthat she had been ignored in the selection of the cast for an oldmelodramatic caricature entitled Martin, the Foundling. 

"It is too bad that you did not ask her for a role for, as you see, the director can do nothing, " said Wladek. 

"Quite true! That's a good idea! I'll try it to-morrow. "

"Ask her for the role of 'Mary' in Doctor Robin which we are topresent next week. Some amateur wishes to join our company and he isto make his debut as 'Garrick. '"

"What sort of role is that of 'Mary?'"

"A splendid display role! I think that you would act it superbly. Ican bring you the play, if you wish. "

"Good! we can read it together. "

On the morrow Janina received a solemn promise from Cabinska thatshe would be given the part. 

In the afternoon Wladek brought Doctor Robin. This was his firstvisit to Janina's home, so he took care to appear particularlyhandsome, elegant, polite, and somewhat absent-minded. He acted loveand respect for Janina with the skill of a virtuoso; he was veryquiet, as though from an excess of happiness. 

"For the first time I feel shy and happy!" he said, kissing Janina'shand. 

"Why shy? You are always so sure of yourself on the stage!" sheanswered, a bit confused. 

"Yes, on the stage, where one only plays happiness, but nothere . . . Where I am really happy. "

"Happy?" she repeated. 

Wladek glanced at Janina with such passionate intensity, with suchmastery of facial expression, accentuated by a rapturous smile, simulating the ecstasy and transport of love, that had he shown thison the stage he would have been warmly applauded. Janina understoodhim excellently and something stirred in her as though some newstring in her heart had been lightly plucked. 

Wladek began to read the play. With each of "Mary's" words, Janina'senthusiastic nature burst forth anew. With bated breath, and eyesfixed on Wladek, she listened, not daring to mar, either by word orgesture, the impression that his reading made on her. She feared todispel the charm that spoke through his eloquent voice and in thevelvety softness of his black eyes. 

When he had finished reading, the girl cried out in rapture: "What asplendid role!"

"I am willing to wager that you will make a furore in it, " remarkedWladek. 

"Yes . . . I feel that I could play it fairly well. 'Garrick, thatcreator 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 becomewith 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 iscontained in art! . . . That is my motto. Beyond art I see almostnothing, " answered Janina suddenly kindling anew with ardor. 

"Even love?" asked Wladek. 

"But art appears to me to be a greater and completer expression ofthe ideal than love . . . " answered Janina. 

"But it is more alien to human beings and not so necessary to lifeas is love. Without art the world could exist, but withoutlove . . . Never! Moreover, art causes more painful disappointmentsthan love. "

"But it also gives greater joys. Love is an individual emotion; artis a social emotion, a synthesis. One loves it with one's humanity, one suffers for it, but only through art does one sometimes becomeimmortal!"

"Those are dreams. Thousands have given their lives to becomeconvinced of that and thousands have cursed that unattainablemirage. "

"But those thousands had their lives filled with that mirage andfelt more than one can feel, who dreams about nothing. "

"But since they were not happy, what is it all worth?"

"And are most people happy?"

"A thousandfold more so than we!"

Wladek emphasized that "we" significantly. 

"Never!" cried Janina, "for our happiness lies in pain as it does injoy, in dejection as well as ecstasy. Even this in itself ishappiness: to be able to develop one's self spiritually; to reachfar out into infinity with the arms of desire; to create new worldsin our mind, larger and more beautiful than those surrounding us; tochant, even through tears and pain, hymns to beauty and immortality;to dream, but to dream so intensely as to forget about life entirelyand to live in dreams alone!"

Janina felt so great a flood of happiness and inspiration flowinginto her soul that she spoke, as it were, only in periods of herthought, so that she might express herself at least in part. Shespoke, entirely forgetful of the fact that some one was listening toher and spun out aloud ever grander and ever more evanescent dreams. 

Wladek at first listened attentively, but later grew impatient. 

"A comedienne!" he thought with irony. And he was sure that Janinawas unfurling before him the peacock feathers of fervor andenthusiasm merely to fascinate and conquer him. He did not answer orinterrupt her, for it finally began to bore him. 

"That role of 'Mary' is a trifle too sentimental . . . " added Janinaafter a longer silence. 

"To me it seemed merely lyrical, " answered Wladek. 

"I should like some time to play 'Ophelia. '"

"Are you familiar with Hamlet?" asked Wladek, somewhat surprised. 

"During the last two years I have read nothing but dramas anddreamed of the stage, " she answered simply. 

"Truly it is worth bending the knee before such enthusiasm!"

"Why? All that is necessary is to help it, to give it a field, anopportunity. . . . "

"If I only could. . . . Believe me when I say, that with my wholeheart I desire to see you reach the heights of art. "

"I believe you, " Janina answered in a quieter tone. "And I thank youvery much for Doctor Robin. "

"May I copy out the role for you?"

"I will copy it myself; it will give me a certain pleasure. "

"While you are learning it, I could act as a prompter for you, ifyou like. "

"Oh, I should not want to take up any of your time . . . "

"Exclude a few hours each day for the performance and the rest of mytime is yours to dispose of as you will, " he said with fervor. 

They gazed at each other a moment. 

Janina gave Wladek her hand; he held and kissed it for a long time. 

"Beginning with to-morrow I shall start to learn the part for I havea day off, " said Janina. 

"I also do not appear on the stage to-morrow. "

Wladek went out a little angry at himself, for although he calledJanina a "comedienne" she had made him feel abashed with hersimplicity and enthusiasm. Moreover, he felt in her a certainintellectual and artistic superiority. 

Janina feverishly applied herself to the study of Doctor Robin. In afew days she knew not only the role of "Mary, " but had memorized theentire play. So intensely eager was she to play the role, that itseemed as though she were staking her whole life on thisperformance. Her former dreams that had been subdued a bit bypoverty and the feverish life of the theater now again burst forthwith a flaming intensity that dazzled and hypnotized her. Thetheater again took so powerful a hold on Janina that there was noroom in her consciousness for anything else. In her hours of ecstasyit appeared to her like a mystic altar suspended high above the grayvale of everyday life and glowing with flames like a second burningbush of Moses; it seemed to her like a miracle that enduredeternally. 

Wladek came to see Janina each day in the interval between therehearsal and the performance, although he was already beginning tobe immensely bored by her endlessly repeated raptures and wasgrowing impatient over the fact that in her mad absorption in artshe did not pay much attention to him. He could not penetrate hermorbid enthusiasm, as he called it, with his love, but henevertheless continued to go to her. 

He began to desire Janina's love ever more strongly. He was invitedby her naivete and by the talent which he felt she possessed. Moreover, he had long since desired just such an elegant andeducated mistress. He wanted by all means to possess this refinedand genteel girl, who was so different from his former mistressesand who captivated him by the charm of her superiority. His triumphwould be all the greater, he told himself, because of the fact thatshe seemed to him one of those ladies of the fashionable world uponwhom he would often cast covetous glances in the Ujazdowskie Allees. 

Janina had not told Wladek that she loved him, but he already saw itin her eyes and spun an ever stronger web about her made up ofsmiles, passionate words, sighs, and exaggerated respect. 

For Janina this was the most beautiful period that she had known inher life. Poverty she treated with scorn, as though it were only atemporary thing that would soon pass away. 

Sowinska, after Wladek's frequent visits, became more intimate andfriendly with Janina and advised her to sell those parts of herwardrobe which she did not need, even offering to do it for her. 

And so life went on for Janina who was oblivious to everything elsebut that performance of Doctor Robin which she awaited with thegreatest impatience. She lived, as it were, in a troubled dream. Through the prism of dreams the world again appeared brighter toher, and people kind. She forgot about everything, even aboutGlogowski, whose recent letter she laid away only half read, for shenow lived entirely in the future. She fortified herself against thepresent with dreams of what was to come. 

Furthermore, Janina loved Wladek. She did not know how it had comeabout, but she now knew that she could not do without him. She feltvery happy and peaceful, when, leaning on his arm, she walked alongthe streets and listened to his low, melodious voice. The softvelvety glances of his dark eyes made her glow with passion and asweet helplessness . . . . 

Everything about him attracted her. He appeared so beautiful uponthe stage! He acted with such fervor and lyricism the parts ofunhappy lovers in the melodramas! He spoke, moved about and posedwith such charming simplicity. He was the favorite of the public;even the press bestowed frequent praises upon him and predicted abrilliant artistic future for him. 

It pleased Janina to see him applauded on the stage. And soskillfully did he know how to exhibit the resources of his brain, that he was generally taken for an educated man, while in reality hepossessed only cleverness and the brazenness of a Warsaw loafer andtrickster. Moreover, for Janina he was the first and only man towhom she had ever surrendered herself. It seemed to her that thisbound them for all time and indissolubly. 

It happened, as it were, of itself, after one of the rehearsals ofDoctor Robin in which Wladek acted as a substitute in the role of"Garrick. " When they had left the theater he spoke or ratherdeclaimed to her about love with a volcanic outburst of passion andaccentuated his emotion with such pathos that he stirred her to thevery depths of her soul. She felt sudden tears of tenderness wellingup in her eyes; and a desire for tremendous happiness through lifeand death remained in her dreaming heart. Her whole soul wasabsorbed in the desire for love. 

Janina did not even know what was happening to her, for she couldnot resist the fascination of his voice. That musical pleading oflove, those burning kisses, and those passionate glances flooded herentire being with an overwhelming and mad desire for joy. Sheabandoned herself to him with the passiveness of a fascinatedcreature, without a word of protest or resistance, but also withouta consciousness of what she was doing; in a word, she washypnotized. 

She did not even know what it was in him that she loved: the actormasterfully playing upon her emotions and enthusiasm, or the man. Janina did not think of this. She loved him because she loved himand because he personified the theater and art for her. 

It seemed to Janina that through his eyes she saw farther anddeeper. Her soul was growing (as the peasants describe certainstages in the development of youth), so besides her distant plans offame in the future, she needed something for herself alone, sheneeded to strengthen herself and support herself on some lovingheart which would at the same time serve as a stepping-stone for herown elevation. She no longer felt lonely, for she could now revealto Wladek her most secret thoughts, dreams, and projects for thefuture and go over various heroic roles together with him. He was asort of physical complement of her, and outlet for her excessiveenergy and dreams. 

Janina did not submerge and lose herself in Wladek's being, butrather absorbed him into herself. And not for one moment did shethink that she had surrendered herself to him, that he washenceforth her lover and lord and that she belonged to him! She didnot even consider whether he had a soul or not. It sufficed her toknow that he was handsome, popular, that he loved her and that sheneeded him. Even in her most intimate confidences and whispers oflove there was a tone of unconscious superiority. She spoke with himcontinually but almost never asked him for his opinion and veryseldom listened to his replies. Wladek could not understand this, but he was conscious of it and it acted as an unpleasant restraintupon him, for in spite of their intimate relation, he could not feelat ease with her in his own way. It wounded his self-love, but hehad no way of remedying it. He possessed her body, but not her soulthat mysterious something, that love that gives itself for life andeternity and makes of itself a footstool for the lover. Thisattitude of Janina's irritated him, but nevertheless attracted himso irresistibly that he doubled his pretenses of love, thinking thatby a larger dose of sentimental falsehood, and a better acting ofemotion he would at last captivate and conquer her completely. However, he did not succeed in doing so. 

Janina, aside from this love, gradually renounced everything, yet inspite of that she felt content. She often suffered hunger, but itwas enough for her to have Wladek at her side and to become absorbedin her role, to forget about the whole world. 

The performance of Doctor Robin was postponed from day to day, forthe amateur who was to make his debut in it became ill. In themeanwhile, other plays had to be given; so Janina was forced tocontent herself with waiting. She was consumed by impatience and theambition to rise at once above the throng of her companions and wasalso impelled by the hope of ending her poverty by this means andfinally, by the need of her own soul which had formed its ownconception of the character of "Mary" and had to give it forth. 

Janina did not even pay attention to what was brewing behind thescenes where every day schemes and projects for new companies wereformed, only to be abandoned after a few days. Krzykiewicz hadalready delicately suggested to Janina on a few occasions that, ifshe wished, she could secure an engagement with Ciepieszewski. Shedeclined, for she remembered Topolski's project and wished to waitfor its realization, knowing that he was counting on her for sure. 

Topolski was in reality organizing a company. It was meant to be asecret as yet, but everyone knew about it. It was openly said thatMimi, Wawrzecki, Piesh with his wife, and a few of the youngerforces had already signed a contract and that Topolski had quietlyclosed a deal for the Lubelsk Theater, a new building that had justbeen opened. It was known for certain that Kotlicki and others hadadvanced him the necessary capital. 

Cabinski, of course, knew all about this and loudly ridiculed theseprojects. He knew very well that he could win back all those who hadjoined Topolski by merely giving them larger advances on theirsalaries. He predicted that Topolski would not hold out for oneseason and would go to smash, for he did not believe that anyone waswilling to loan him money for organizing a new company. 

"There are no longer any such fools!" he said aloud with conviction. What amused him most was Topolski's proposed reform of the theaterwhich he unceremoniously termed an idiocy. Cabinski knew the publicwell and knew what it wanted. 

Topolski held frequent soirees at his home to which he invited allthose whom he might need. But he did not yet speak openly about hiscompany, leaving that to Wawrzecki who treated the matterenthusiastically as though it were his own and used it to tauntCabinski with and to create more frequent rumpuses about his overduesalary. 

Janina was present at a few of these evenings at Topolski's house, but was bored by them, for the men would usually play cards, whilethe women, if they were not gossiping or complaining, would enclosethemselves within a narrow circle for secret whispering from whichthey barred Janina, fearing that she might betray something toCabinski, to whose home she went daily to give piano lessons. 

At the last of these evenings, while they were having tea, Majkowskaquietly begged Janina to stay a little longer, promising that sheand Topolski would accompany her home. 

Wladek never appeared at these affairs, for he was an open andstanch supporter of Cabinski. 

After all the rest had gone Topolski sat opposite Janina and beganto tell her about the company he was organizing. 

"It will be an exemplary theater for true art! I have a splendidensemble of actors; I have made a contract for one of the besttheaters, the library is ready to be sent away and the costumes arealready half completed, hence we have almost all that is needed. "

"What are you still lacking?" asked Janina, determining immediatelyto ask for an engagement. 

"A little money . . . A mere trifle of about a thousand rubles as aworking capital for the first month, " answered Topolski. 

"Couldn't you borrow it?"

"Yes . . . And that is precisely what I want to talk over with youin a friendly way, for we already count you as one of us. I willgive you a good salary and alternating roles with Mela for I knowthat you are a capable actress. You have the appearance, the voiceand the temperament, and, aside from intelligence, that is just whatis required to make an excellent actress. "

"Oh thank you, thank you sincerely!" cried Janina beaming with joy. And so elated was she that she kissed Majkowska, who, as was herhabit, was almost lying on the table and gazing absently at thelamp. 

"But you must help us!" said Topolski after a short pause. 

"I? What can I do?" she asked in surprise. 

"A great deal! If you only want to . . . " he answered. 

"Well! if you say that I can, then, of course I shall be glad tohelp, for it is not only my duty, but also in my own interest! ButI'm very curious to know what I can do. "

"It's a question of that one thousand rubles. The money is alreadyassured, only there is one little condition . . . "

"What is it?" Janina asked curiously. 

Topolski drew closer to her, took hold of her hands in a friendlyway and only then answered:

"Miss Janina not only our theater, but your entire artistic futuredepends on this, so I will tell you frankly that there is someonewho is ready to give even two thousand rubles, but he said that hewould give them only to you personally, otherwise not at all. "

"Who is that person?" she asked uneasily. 

"Kotlicki!"

Janina dropped her head and for a while a deep silence reigned inthe room. Topolski gazed at her uneasily, while Majkowska had uponher face an indescribably derisive smile. 

Janina almost cried out with pain, so repulsive did that name andproposal strike her and after a moment she arose from her chair andsaid in a determined voice: "No! I will not go to Kotlicki . . . Andthat which you have proposed to me is insulting and outrageous! Onlyin the theater can people lose so entirely their moral sense as topersuade others to base acts and purposely push them into the mireof degradation, so that they themselves may profit. You havemiscalculated this time, my dear sir! I have not fallen so low asthat. What hurts me is that you could think even for a moment that Iwould agree to go to Kotlicki, to Kotlicki, who is more repulsive tome than the basest reptile!" she cried, carried away by passion. 

"Miss Janina! Let us speak it over calmly and sensibly, withoutgetting excited. "

"You dare to tell me not to get excited?"

"I must, for you are simply inexperienced; consequently that which Iask of you appears to you as something monstrous, something thatwill immediately sink you in the mud, dishonor you, and shame you. "

"For God's sake, what is it then, if not just that!" Janina cried inamazement. 

"Let us stop playing a comedy, let us drop this game ofhide-and-seek and look at things as they are and we shall see that Iam not proposing anything out of the ordinary to you. What am Iasking of you? Merely that you go to Kotlicki for the money which isto be the foundation of our common future, the money which willcreate our theater for us and without which none of us can budgefrom Warsaw. So what is there wrong in this? What wrong can there bein that which will make almost all of us happy?"

"What? Is it possible that you do not see any wrong in the fact thatI, a woman should go alone to the home of a man? And for what willhe give me that one thousand or two thousand rubles?"

"When you lived with Glogowski no one regarded it as wrong. Now, when you are living with Wladek who blames you for it? After all, what is there so dreadfully dishonorable about it? We all live thatway; and are we thereby committing anything base? . . . No! for thatis a secondary thing, for we have something more important in ourminds: art!"

"No, I will not go!" answered Janina quietly, depressed by thediscovery that they all knew about her relation with Wladek. 

She continued to listen to Topolski without hearing or understandinghis words. He began to expostulate with her, to beg, and to explainthat they were all sacrificing their very lives for the theater, something more than the mere whim of a woman. He pointed out to herthat by her refusal she would deal a mortal blow to the newlyorganized company; that they were all counting on her and would begrateful to her until death, for by her sacrifice she would insurethe welfare of dozens of people; that the new theater would beconnected with her name. He wished by all means to break down heropposition which he could not understand, but Janina remainedunmoved. 

"If my life itself depended on it, I would not go; I would prefer todie!" said Janina with final determination. 

"Well then, good-bye!" answered Topolski angrily. 

Janina kept looking at him and still wanted to explain herself morefully, but Majkowska threw her cloak over her shoulders for her, brutally placed her hat on her head, and showering her with insults, opened the door widely before her. 

Janina like an automaton, permitted her to do what she wanted withher and, like an automaton she walked down the stairs and along thestreets to her home. 

She felt sorry for the new company and regretted the prospect thatshe was losing by breaking with Topolski but at the same time shefelt an unbearable shame consuming her at the thought that thesepeople should take her for such a degraded being by daring to makesuch proposals to her and expecting that she would fulfill them. 

Janina could not calm herself. That night she dreamed now ofKotlicki, now of Wladek, then again of the theater. She heard howall were cursing and reviling her, she saw as it were, a band ofpeople covered with rags and with hatred glowing in their eyes, pursuing her with curses and trying to beat her. In those vaguelyoutlined faces she recognized Mela, Topolski, Mimi, and Wawrzecki. Again, she dreamed that she was walking along the street and thateverybody was staring at her so strangely and so horribly that shefelt like sinking into the earth to avoid their glances; but she hadno strength to move and that multitude slowly filed by her whileTopolski stood pointing at her and crying in a loud and derisivevoice: "Behold! she lived with Glogowski and is now the mistress ofWladek!"

Janina could not bear that; she screamed wildly in her sleep for shesaw, as it were, her father approaching her with Krenska at hisside, pointing at her and calling: "She lived with Glogowski and nowis the mistress of Wladek!"

"God, oh God!" she moaned, writhing with the torment of that dream. 

And the throng of familiar faces continued to grow. There appearedthe priest from Bukowiec, the teachers of her boarding school, herformer companions and Grzesikiewicz. All, all passed by her hastilyand stared at her with such a dreadful, horrible smile that itpierced her like a dagger and scourged her like a whip. 

Janina awoke with tear-streaming eyes and utterly exhausted. 

Before the rehearsal Wladek came to see her. For the first time shethrew herself into his arms of her own accord. 

"They all know!" she whispered, hiding her face upon his breast. 

Wladek immediately surmised what she meant and answered: "Well, whatof it? Is it a crime?"

He sat down in an ill humor, began to rub his knee and tossed aboutangrily in his chair. 

Janina noticed his mood and, forgetting about herself, inquired:"What is the matter with you? Are you ill?"

"There is nothing the matter with me, only I owe someone a fewrubles and am unable to pay them back. I can't ask my mother for themoney, for she is sick again and it would only finish her! Cabinskiwill not give it to me either, and I am at my wit's end!"

He was, of course, lying, for he had been playing cards the wholenight long and had lost all he had. Janina remembered the help shehad received from Glogowski, so without hesitation she took off hergold watch and chain and laid it before Wladek. 

"I have no money. Take this and pawn it and pay your debt and whatyou have left over bring me back, for I also have nothing, " she saidheartily. 

"No, I shall not take it! What do you want to do that for? I reallydon't need it. . . . My dear child! . . . " remonstrated Wladek inhis first impulse of honesty. 

"Please take it. . . . If you love me you will take it. "

Wladek demurred a little while yet, but the thought struck him thatwith the money he might play again to win back what he had lost. 

"No! What would that look like!" he whispered, his resistancegrowing ever weaker. 

"Go right away and on your way back stop in for me and we shall havebreakfast together, " urged Janina. 

Wladek kissed her, as though he were embarrassed, muttered somethingabout gratitude, but finally took the watch and went to pawn it. 

He returned quickly with thirty rubles. He immediately borrowedtwenty from Janina and wanted even to give her a receipt for them, but she became so angry that he had to apologize to her. Then theywent out to breakfast. 

Thenceforward they lived together. At the theater everyone knewabout their relation, but it was such a usual thing, that no onepaid attention to it. Only Sowinska would sometimes taunt Janina onthe score and slight her and, whereas not so long ago she had donenothing but praise Wladek, she now told the vilest sort of talesabout him. She delighted in tormenting Janina in this manner, andavenged herself in this way for the loss of her son's love. 

At last it was announced that stage rehearsals of Doctor Robin wereto begin. Wladek brought this information to Janina, because for afew days she had been very weak and had not left her home at all. She felt an oppressive drowsiness and exhaustion and an unbearablepain in her back. Then again such a feeling of helplessness anddiscouragement would possess her that she wanted to cry and had nodesire to stir from her bed, but lay for whole days, gazing blanklyat the ceiling. The humming sensation in her head returned and shesuffered such a burning thirst that nothing could quench it. However, on hearing that she was to take part in the play, Janinaimmediately felt well and strong again. 

She went to the rehearsal, trembling with fear, but on seeing theperson who was to play "Garrick, " she quickly mastered herself. Thisamateur was hardly more than a boy, skinny, awkward, andsimple-minded. He lisped and waddled about like a duck, but since hewas the cousin of one of the influential journalists who backed him, he regarded everybody at the theater with a haughty expression andtreated them with an air of condescension. The members of thecompany delicately ridiculed him to his face and laughed loudly athim behind his back. 

Everybody was present at the rehearsal, as though they had allagreed upon it beforehand. 

No sooner did Janina enter upon the stage than Majkowskaostentatiously withdrew behind the scenes, while Topolski did not somuch as nod his head to her in greeting. Janina realized thatrelations with them were severed for good, but she had no time tothink about it, for the rehearsal began immediately. Despite thefact that she had at first intended merely to recite her role, Janina could not now refrain from marking it, at least in its broadoutlines. 

She was irritated by the fact that everyone was looking at her andthat from all directions numerous eyes were fixed upon her. Itseemed to her that she saw ridicule in their glances and derision onall those lips, so at moments she would start nervously and breakout with all the force of her temperament, or again, she would speaktoo softly. 

Majkowska stood there hissing and laughing together with Zarneckaand loudly voicing her opinion of Janina's acting. Topolski, thestage-manager, made her leave and reenter the stage several times, for in her excitement, she did not enter properly. 

Janina knew what they were doing, so she did not take very much toheart Mela's ridicule or Topolski's pedantic instructions. Sheplayed on and rendered her role forcibly, if a little unevenly. 

There followed a characteristic silence; nobody laughed nor jestedloudly. 

The stage-director walked up and down behind the scenes contentedlyrubbing his hands and grunting: "Good, good, but she does not yetput enough pathos into it!"

"Why, don't you hear she is already shouting, not speaking!"Majkowska jeered at him. 

"My dear madame! You go into convulsions on the stage, and none ofus, out of politeness, blames you for it, " answered Stanislawski forhis friend. 

"Not that way! Who waves his arms in that manner? Are you trying tomake a windmill of yourself?" cried Topolski. 

"Don't discourage her, remember it is her first rehearsal!" criedCabinska from the seats. 

"You walk about the stage like a goose!" again remarked theirritated Topolski to Janina. 

"She wouldn't be at all bad as a washerwoman!" hissed Mela. 

In spite of all, although she felt tears of wrath rising to hereyes, Janina played on, without letting herself be confused andnever for a moment losing her presence of mind. 

When she had finished, Cabinska ostentatiously kissed her and beganto praise her aloud so that Majkowska could hear: "I congratulateyou and have no doubt that you will play the part excellently!"

"Work out the details a little better, " Stanislawski advised her. 

"Why, this is merely a rehearsal! I already have the entirecharacter worked out in my head. "

"We shall now have a real heroine, for one that is beautiful andtalented at the same time!" cried Rosinska in a very loud voice. 

Majkowska glared at her furiously, but did not reply. 

Janina felt so happy that she had a desire to kiss everybody. 

In two days the performance was to take place. That interval waslike one immense vista of light in which Janina seemed eagerlyabsorbed. It seemed to her that she was entirely satisfied. 

"At last! At last! Now, all my poverty and humiliation will end!"Janina whispered rapturously to herself. She thought that arepertory of roles would immediately be assigned to her. She gavefree reign to her imagination and already saw herself upon somepinnacle. She was already in that promised land of powerful emotionsabout which she dreamed every day in that realm that swarmed beforeher eyes with a stately throng of heroic figures, superhumanpassions, and dazzling beauty, a realm in which there reigned aperfect harmony between dreams and reality. 

Janina smiled with pity at those days of want and poverty, as thoughshe were bidding farewell to them forever. Everything thatsurrounded her, even Wladek, paled into insignificance before herfascinated eyes. 

A thousand times she repeated the role of "Mary. " She sat for hoursat a time before the mirror, practicing the appropriate facialexpression and became feverish with impatience while awaiting thearrival of the momentous day. At night, Janina would sit half asleepin her bed and gaze before her. It seemed to her that she saw thecrowded theater and the representatives of the press, that she heardthe quiet murmurs of the public, saw their enraptured glances, andthat she entered the stage and played. . . . Half unconsciously shewould repeat the words of her role, kindle with ardor, declaim themwith exaltation. Then, overcome by drowsiness again, she would smilethrough tears of happiness for she heard most distinctly thatwell-known and thrilling thunder of applause and cries of:"Orlowska! Orlowska!" And with that smile on her face she would fallasleep and wake again to continue her dreams. 

Janina sold whatever she could to buy the appropriate costume forher part. With a smile of contentment she would drive away Wladek sothat he might not interfere with her. 

On that day which was to be for her so important and decisive, Cabinski, before the general rehearsal, took away her part and gaveit to Majkowska. 

Intrigue and envy had gained their end. Cabinski was forced toyield, for Topolski had threatened to leave the company immediatelyunless he took away the role from Janina and gave it to Majkowska. It was the way he chose to avenge himself because of Janina'srefusal to go to Kotlicki. 

Struck to the very heart, Janina almost lost her reason under thisblow. She began to stagger on her feet and felt that the wholetheater was whirling about her and that everything was sinking withher into a bottomless darkness. She cast a glance of unspeakablegrief at all those about her, as though seeking for help, but on thefaces of most of the members of the company there was an expressionof merriment over what they thought was a splendid joke, and thebeastly joy of cretins at the suppression of talent. They mocked thedefeated aspirant with their glances; burning taunts and jibes beganto fall from all sides like stones upon her soul crushed by anunexpected blow. Brutal laughs arose, scourging her as with a whipand all the baseness of human delight in the pain of others foundits object and outlet. 

And Janina stood there without a word or motion, with that dreadfulpain in her heart in which it seemed as though all the arteries hadbeen torn open and were flooding it with the blood of despair. 

She collected enough strength to ask: "Why may I not play the part?"

"Because you may not and that settles it!" answered Cabinski curtly. And he immediately left the theater, because he dreaded a scene andfelt a trifle sorry for Janina. 

She remained standing behind the scenes with that overwhelming andsharp pain of disappointment tearing at her soul. She felt such anemptiness and loneliness that at moments it seemed to her as thoughshe were all alone in the world and that something had pinned her tothe earth with an immense weight and was crushing her down, that shewas falling with lightning speed to the bottom of some deep abysswhere a grayish-green whirlpool was dimly roaring. 

Her thoughts and feelings were breaking and snapping under thetremendous strain and tears of hopeless abandonment flooded hereyes. She went to the dressing-room and sat down in the darkestcorner. 

Her dreams were crumbling to pieces: those wonderful realms werevanishing and sinking away in the misty distance, those enchantingvisions were waving like torn rags in her brain and soul. 

The dull grayness of the dirty walls and decorations about her andthe throng of shabby, jeering beggars seemed to saturate and oppressher whole being. She felt so utterly weary, broken, sick, andhelpless that she went out into the hall to look for Wladek to takeher home, but she could not find him. He had cautiously disappeared, so Janina went back to the dressing-room and sat there in a daze. 

"Beware of dreams! Beware of water!" she repeated to herself, remembering with difficulty who had told her that. And suddenly, Janina became pale and reeled back for such a chaos began to whirlin her brain that she thought she would go mad . . . . 

For a long time she sat in a senseless torpor and wept without beingable to restrain herself, for after partly regaining herconsciousness the memory of all her sufferings and disappointmentscame back to her again. At last utterly worn out, and, lulled by thesilence that enveloped the theater after the rehearsal, she fellasleep. 

She was awakened by Rosinska who on that day had come earlier to thedressing-room, for she was to begin the play. When she saw thesleeping girl, the older actress was moved to pity. The remainingshreds of her womanhood covered by the artificiality of theatricallife, awoke in her at the sight of that pale face, worn by povertyand dejection. 

"Miss Janina--" whispered Rosinska tenderly. 

Janina arose and began nervously to wipe away the traces of tearsfrom her face. 

"Have you not seen Mr. Niedzielski?" she asked Rosinska. 

"No. My poor child, so that is what they have done to you! But youmust not take it so much to heart. If you want to be an artist youmust bear a great deal, suffer a great deal. My dear, if you onlyknew what I had to go through and still have to. If you wanted togrieve over all the afflictions that come to you, become irritatedover all the gossip they spread about you or weep over everyintrigue in which they try to entangle you, you would have neitherany tears, nor eyes, nor strength left! There's no use crying overit, for things can't be any different in the theater! Moreover, youhaven't lost anything by it! That one disappointment makes youricher by one more experience. "

"Perhaps they are right, after all. I must have no talent whatever, if Cabinski took away the role from me . . . . "

"It is just because you have a talent that they played this trick onyou. I heard what the cousin of that amateur said at the firstrehearsal. "

"What good will all that do me, when I can't play and have nothingto live on. "

"That is all the doing of Majkowska. She forced Cabinski to take therole away from you. "

"I know she bears me a grudge, but I can't conceive why she shouldrevenge herself in such an inhuman way!"

"You don't know her yet. . . . I don't know what you two quarreledabout, but I do know that when she saw you on the stage at the firstrehearsal she became so greatly afraid that you might eclipse herthat she immediately began to lay plans for your undoing. I saw howshe hung about that amateur, how she fawned upon his cousin andCabinski, how she kissed the hands of the directress! I saw with myown eyes! Did you ever hear of anyone degrading one's self in thatmanner? But she attained her end. She has already done away withmany another in the same way. You probably do not know what I, anactress of long standing and with so large a repertory, have tosuffer on her account. You could not notice what was being schemed, for it was all done so quickly that besides myself, probably no oneelse knew about it. Such a creature as she always has luck! But waitI will fix her to-day! I'll pay her back for the both of us!"

The dressing-room slowly began to fill with actresses, their noisychatter and the smell of powder and pigments that were being warmedover the candles. They were beginning to dress. 

At last Majkowska came in, stately and triumphant, with a bouquet inher hands and roses in her corsage. Seeing Janina sitting alongsideof Rosinska she frowned and cried angrily: "If I am not mistaken, this is not the dressing-room of the chorus girls. "

"You are mistaken, you pantomime artist!" retorted Rosinska. 

"I am not speaking to you. "

"But I am answering you. Please stay here, " she said, turning toJanina who wanted to leave. 

"Don't you begin with me! Do you think I'm going to dress togetherwith novices, eh?"

"Wait, you'll get a separate cell with a strait-jacket of your own. You can't miss it. "

"Shut your mouth! You forty-year-old simp. "

"My age is none of your business, you ruined heroine!"

"She looks like a drenched hen on the stage and yet dares to raiseher voice here. "

Everybody in the dressing-room was shaking with laughter, whileRosinska and Majkowska began to quarrel ever more vulgarly, withouthowever interrupting for a moment their make-up and hasty dressing. 

Janina listened to the quarrel in silence. She hardly felt anygrievance toward Majkowska for depriving her of the role, but only aphysical aversion to her person. Majkowska now appeared to her sofilthy, brazen, and base that even her voice sounded disgusting. 

Only when they began to play Doctor Robin, Janina stood behind thescenes to see what would be done with her role. It is impossible todescribe that subtle, excruciating pain that rent her soul when shesaw Majkowska as "Mary" on the stage. She felt that that other womanwas tearing out piecemeal from her brain and heart every word, everygesture, every pose and accent. 

"They are mine, mine!" she breathed, unable to help herself. "Mine!"And she devoured Mela with her eyes and then closed them so that shemight not behold any more of it, nor torment herself withremembering the role as she had conceived it. "The thief!" shefinally whispered so loudly that Majkowska trembled on the stage. 

Rosinska sat behind the scenes on the other side of the stage. Assoon as Majkowska entered there began a scene upon the stage for sherepeated each word after Mela in an undertone and in a falseintonation, laughed aloud at her acting, ridiculed and mimicked hergestures. 

At first Majkowska paid no attention to this, but finally she couldno longer refrain from looking behind the scenes and could not helphearing that raillery and mimicry of herself. She could not catchthe prompter's words and stopped short in the middle of a sentence, while Rosinska continued to crowd her ever more mercilessly. 

Majkowska grew furious with impotent rage, but her playing wasbecoming worse all the time and she felt it, and began to throwherself about the stage as though she were obsessed. Behind everyscene she saw faces laughing at her; even Dobek in his box stoppedhis mouth with his hand so heartily amused was he by what was goingon. That deprived Majkowksa of the rest of her self-control. 

As soon as she left the stage she threw herself at Rosinska with herfists. There arose such a rumpus that the men had to part the twoactresses, for they had begun pulling the hair out of each other'swigs. Majkowska was forcibly led to the dressing-room. She ragedlike a mad woman and got an attack of hysteria. She smashed mirrors, tore up costumes, and tossed about so violently that they had tocall a doctor and tie her hands and feet. 

Cabinska pulled out the rest of his hair in despair, but the actorslaughed in their dressing-rooms and enjoyed themselves immensely. 

The curtain had to be lowered in the middle of the play, andTopolski, almost pale with anger announced to the audience: "Ladiesand Gentlemen! Because of the sudden and serious indisposition ofMiss Majkowska, Doctor Robin cannot be concluded. The following playon the program will immediately begin. "

Janina despite the satisfaction that she felt at the fiasco of herenemy, began to feel sorry for Majkowska when she saw her senselessand suffering. She was not yet enough of an actress to feelindifferent to it, so she went to her, but seeing in the room thedoctor, and Cabinski, who was quarreling with Rosinska she hastilyretreated. 

Rosinska, Wolska, and Mirowska declared outright to Cabinski that ifMajkowska remained in the company they would leave it the very nextday. 

Cabinski fled, but he next ran into Stanislawski and Krzykiewicz whotold him the same with the addition that they would not remain a daylonger with him for they were ashamed to be in a company where suchpublic scandals occurred. 

The director almost went crazy, for he was not prepared for such athing. He tried to squirm out of it as best as he could, madepromises, gave orders on the treasurer to all who wanted them and, spying Janina called aloud to her with the object of mollifyingsomewhat his previous conduct: "If you want something from thetreasurer, I will give you an order, for I must leave right away. "

Janina asked for five rubles. He did not even so much as make a wryface but gave it to her and immediately ran off to Pepa, but on theway he was again tackled by that amateur and his cousin and thingsbegan to grow so noisy behind the scenes that the public listeneduneasily, wondering what was the matter. 

The performance was concluded amid the silence of the audience; notone handclap sounded. 

Janina, on leaving the box office with the money, met Niedzielskahobbling slowly along. 

She stopped and wanted to greet her, but Niedzielska looked at herthreateningly and barked: "What do you want, you! you!" She coughedviolently, threatened Janina with her cane with which she supportedherself, and dragged herself on. 

Janina unconsciously looked about her, to see if she could spyWladek anywhere, but he had already vanished. She had not seen himsince that morning. 

Wladek purposely avoided her, for he had reached the decisiveconclusion that it was better to have intercourse only with ordinarywomen, for with them it was not necessary to restrain one's self, topretend, and to be continually forced to take everything intoaccount. Moreover, Janina had made a fiasco as an actress andcontinued to be nothing but a chorus girl, and his mother hadthreatened to disinherit him because of her. 

Janina gazed for a long time after the old woman, who, no doubt, wasgoing to seek her son, and then she went slowly home. 

CHAPTER X

Janina lay sick in bed. 

It seemed to her as though she were at the bottom of a well and, from those depths into which they had shoved her she could see onlythe pale, distant blue of the sky, sometimes complete darkness, sometimes the twinkling of the stars, then again some wings, flyingpast, would cast a shadow over her eyes so that she lost knowledgeof everything. She only felt that those eddies of life without, itsvoices, noises, cries, fears, and despair oozed down the smoothsides of the well and flowed into her soul as into a reservoir, penetrating her whole soul with an unconscious pain which she, however, felt with every fiber of her being. 

The days dragged on as slowly as though they were strung on thechain of ages, as slowly as they drag on for those who have losteverything, even hope. 

Janina sent word to the director that she was sick, but no one cameto see her. Cabinska merely sent Wicek to say that Yadzia waslonging for her piano lessons, and nothing more. 

There, they were playing, learning, creating something and living!Here, she lay sunken in a complete apathy, like a crushed soul thathardly dares at moments to think that it still exists and then againsinks into an agony which cannot, however, end in the oblivion ofdeath. 

Janina was not really physically ill, for nothing pained her, butwas dying from inner exhaustion. It seemed to her as though she hadspent the whole store of her strength in those three months oftheatrical life and that she was now dying from the hunger of hersoul that had nothing left with which to keep it alive. 

Throughout those long days, throughout that endless agony of silentnights she slowly pondered the nature of everyone whom she had methere; and that slow, but entirely one-sided, cognizance of herenvironment filled her with bitter sadness. 

"There is no happiness on earth . . . " Janina whispered to herself, and it seemed to her that hitherto she had had a cataract blindingher eyes which fate had now brutally torn off. She now saw, butthere were moments in which she yearned for her former blindness andgroping in the dark. 

"There is no happiness!" she repeated bitterly, and rebelliouspessimism mastered her soul entirely. 

Everywhere Janina saw only evil and baseness. There passed beforeher the forms of all her acquaintances and she scornfully thrustthem all down into one pit, not excluding Wladek. He had dropped inonly once to see her and began to excuse himself for his absence, but she impatiently interrupted him and asked him to go away. 

She already knew him well enough and wondered as the thoughtoccurred to her that she had ever loved him. 

"Why? Why?" Janina asked herself. 

Shame and regret began to fill her at the thought that she hadfallen so low and for him. He now appeared to her miserable andcommon. She could not forgive herself. 

"What fatality placed him in my path of life?" Janina asked herselffurther. In her own eyes she felt deeply humiliated. 

"I did not love him, " she pondered and a shudder of disgust shookher. He began to grow hateful to her. 

And the theater also, lost a great deal of its glamor for Janina inthose hours of reflection. She now looked at it through the prism ofthose continual quarrels and behind-the-scenes intrigues, throughthe vanity of its priests and through her own disappointments. 

"It is not as I used to see it formerly!" she lamented. 

Everything became increasingly smaller and grayer to Janina's innervision. Everywhere she began to discover rags, sham, and falsehood. People obscured everything for her with their baseness andpettiness. She no longer desired to reign as a queen upon the stage. 

"What is that? What is that?" she whispered to herself and saw amotley, heterogeneous public that was indifferent to the quality ofa play. It came to the theater to amuse itself and laugh; ithankered for clownishness and the circus. 

"What is that? Comedianism for profit and for the amusement of themultitude, " Janina answered herself. The stage now appeared to heras a real arena for the feats of clowns and trained monkeys. 

"I wanted to be an entertainer of the mob! And where does art comein? What is pure art, the ideal, for which hundreds of peoplesacrifice their lives?"

"What is it and where is it to be found?" she asked herselfuneasily, beginning to see that everything is rather an amusementthan an aim in itself. 

Literature, poetry, music, painting, and all the fine arts passedbefore Janina's mind. She could not separate their utilitarianaspect from their purely artistic one. She saw that all artistsplayed, sang, and created only to amuse that vast, brutal, mob. Forit they sacrificed their lives, their strength, and their dreams;for it they struggled and suffered, lived and died. 

To Janina that vast multitude of Grzesikiewiczs, Kotlickis, andcounselors, appeared in its ignorance and low instincts like a cruelmaster who, with a half-mocking, half-favoring smile, looked downupon that entire human throng of artists that painted, played, recited, created, and begged with a nervous look for his favor andrecognition. 

And she saw one immense wave of human beings spreading over the wideplains of earth, swaying slowly and going nowhere; and on the otherside all those artists who were passing through the mob in alldirections, loudly proclaiming something, singing with inspiredvoices, pointing to the expanse of heaven, calling attention to thestars, trying to bring about some order in this disorderly, teemingmultitude, opening paths among it, imploring it in deep tones. Butthe multitude either laughed or merely nodded its assent, but didnot budge from its place. It surged and pushed about and trampledthe artists underfoot. 

"What is that? Why?" Janina asked herself, greatly terrified. "Ifthey do not need us then we ought to let them alone, keepingourselves apart from them and living only for ourselves and withourselves. " But again everything became confused in her mind and shecould not conceive how it would be possible to live apart from therest of humanity and concluded that it would not be worth living atall in that way. Her thoughts whirled in confusion through herbrain. 

Sowinska, who now took care of her with motherly solicitude, came inand interrupted her frenzied thoughts. 

"Why don't you go home?" she advised Janina sincerely. 

"Never!" answered Janina. 

"Why should you wear yourself out in that way? You will rest alittle, gain new strength, and return again to the theater. "

"No, " answered Janina quietly. 

"I forgot to tell you that old Mrs. Niedzielska was here to see meyesterday. "

"Do you know her?" asked the younger woman. 

"Not at all, but she had some business with me. Oh, she is a slyfox, that old hag!" added Sowinska. 

"Perhaps she is a bit too miserly, but otherwise she is a ratherhonest woman. "

"Honest? You'll find out yet for yourself how honest she is. "

"Why?" asked Janina, but without curiosity, for it didn't at allinterest her now. 

"I will only say this much . . . That she does not love you in theleast, not in the least!"

"That's strange, for I never did her any wrong, " answered Janina. 

Sowinska's demeanor suddenly changed, for she glanced angrily atJanina and wanted to say something sharp, but seeing that Janina'sface wore an expression of complete indifference, she refrained andleft the room. 

Janina thought about Bukowiec. 

"I have no home, " she thought, even without bitterness. "The wholewide world is my home, " she added, but suddenly remembered whatGrzesikiewicz had told her about her father and stirred as thoughsome hidden pain had awakened in her. An uneasiness, not such asbesets one on the eve of some event, but such as one feels onremembering some good that one has lost forever, filled Janina'sheart. It was the pain of the past like the quiet remembrance of thedead. 

But those memories of Bukowiec and those lonely nights when shedreamed, forgetting about everything, and created for herself suchwondrous worlds, now flashed upon her mind in all their vividness. Only the memory of that exuberant and majestic nature, those vastfields, and those silent glens full of murmurs and bird songs, verdure, and wild grandeur swathed Janina in melancholy and lulledher weary soul with its charms. 

The woods in which she was reared, those dim depths full ofunspeakable wonders, those gigantic trees to which she was united bya thousand affinities, outlined themselves in her mind ever morepowerfully. Janina longed for them now and listened through thenights, for it seemed to her that she heard the grave autumnalmurmur of the forest, the somnolent rustling of its branches. Itseemed that she felt within herself the slow, endless swaying ofthose giant trees, the soft motions of the verdure bathed in goldensunlight, the joyous cry of the birds, the fragrance of the youngpine saplings and juniper bushes the whole leisurely life of nature. 

Janina lay for whole hours at a time, without a word, thought, ormotion, for her soul was there in those verdant woods. She wanderedover the meadows covered with wild raspberries and waving grass, strayed across the fields where the rye grew high like a wood, swaying and murmuring in the breeze and gleaming with dew in thesunlight, penetrated the groves full of the pungent smell of theresin. She followed each road, each boundary, each wood path, greeted everything that lived there and cried out to the fields, woods, the hills, and the sky: "I have come! I have come!" smilingas though she had found a lost happiness. 

These invigorating memories restored Janina's health almostentirely. On the eighth day she felt strong enough for a walk. Shewas longing for the fresh air, the verdure unsoiled by city dust, the sunlight, and the vast open spaces. She felt that the city wasstifling her, that here, at every step, she had to limit her own egoand continually struggle against all the barriers of custom anddependence. 

Janina passed through the Place of Arms and, going beyond theCitadel, she walked along the damp sand dunes to Bielany. 

An unbroken silence enveloped her on all sides. The sun shonebrightly and warmly, but from the water there blew a brisk, invigorating breeze. 

She gazed at the quiet river flecked with spots of white foam and atthe indistinct silhouettes of boats trailing along in midstream. Shebreathed in deeply the calm that surrounded her and felt aresurgence of her wasted strength. 

Janina lay down upon the yellowish sand of the bank and, gazing atthe gleaming expanse of waters, forgot everything. It seemed to heras though she were flowing on with the current of the river, passingthe shores, houses, and woods and hurrying on continually into ablue and boundless distance like the illimitable expanse of heaventhat hung over her. It seemed to her as though she no longerremembered anything, but felt only the ineffable delight of rockingwith the waves. 

Janina suddenly awoke from that half dream, for there passed nearher an old man with a fishing rod in his hand. He looked at her inpassing, sat down almost beside her on the very edge of the river, cast his line into the water and waited. 

He had so honest a face that she felt a desire to speak to him andwas thinking how to begin, when he addressed her first: "Would youlike to take a trip over to the other side?"

Janina glanced at him questioningly. 

"Aha! I see that we don't understand each other. I thought that youwanted to drown yourself, " he said. 

"I wasn't even thinking about death, " she replied quietly. 

"Ha! ha! It would be an unexpected honor for the river. "

He adjusted his fishing tackle and became silent, centering all hisattention on the fish that had begun to circle about the bait andthe hook. 

A deeper silence, as it were, diffused itself about and began tofill Janina's soul with a blissful calm. She felt that an immensegoodness was pervading her, that the majesty of that expanse ofheaven, of the waters and the verdure was uplifting her and drawingfrom her breast a hymn of thanksgiving and the pure joy of living, free from all earthly things. 

The old man cast a sidelong glance at her and on his narrow lipsthere hovered an unfathomable smile. 

Janina felt that look and in turn glanced at him. Their eyes met ina long and friendly gaze. 

She felt a sudden and irresistible impulse to reveal the depths ofher soul to him. 

She moved closer to him and said quietly: "I was not thinking aboutdeath. "

"Then you were seeking calm?"

"Yes, I wanted to take a look at nature and to forget. "

"Forget about what?"

"About life!" Janina whispered hoarsely and tears of violent grieffilled her eyes. 

"You are a child. It must have been some disappointment in love, some thwarted ambition, or perhaps the lack of a dinner that put youin such a tragic mood. "

"All that taken together is not enough to make one feel very, veryunhappy, " answered Janina. 

"All that taken together is one big zero, for according to my way ofthinking there is nothing that can make wholly unhappy an individualwho knows himself, " he said. 

"Who are you . . . That is, what do you do?" he asked, after pausinga while. 

"I am in the theater, " answered the girl. 

"Aha! the world of comedy! Simulation which you afterwards take forreality. Chimeras! All that warps the human soul. The greatestactors are merely phonographs wound up sometimes by sages, sometimesby geniuses, but most often by fools. And they speak to even greaterfools. Actors, artists, creators are merely blind instruments ofnature which uses them to reveal itself and for ends known to itselfalone! To them it seems that they are something real, but that is asad deception, for they are merely instruments which are thrown intothe discard when they are no longer needed or have lost theirusefulness. "

"Who are you?" Janina asked, almost unknowingly, stirred by hiswords. 

"An old man as you see, who fishes and likes to chat. Oh yes, I amvery old. I come here for a few hours every day in the summertime, if the weather is fair, and catch fish, if they let themselves becaught. What good will it do you to know who I am? My name will tellyou nothing. In the sum total of humanity I am merely a pawn whichis given a certain number upon entrance into this world and retainsthe same at the time of its exit. I am a cell of feeling long agoregistered and classified by my fellow-beings as a 'ne'er-do-well, '"he said, smiling. 

"I had no intention of offending you by my question. "

"I never get angry about anything. Only foolish people angerthemselves or rejoice. A man ought merely to look on, observe, andgo his own way, " he added, drawing a gudgeon from his hook. 

Janina was a bit chilled by his gravity and by his decisive way ofspeaking which admitted of no discussion. 

"Are you from the Warsaw Theater?" he asked, throwing out his lineagain. 

"No, I am in Cabinski's company. No doubt you know him. "

"I don't know him, nor have I heard about him. "

"Is it possible that you have never heard anything about Cabinski, nor read about the Tivoli?" asked Janina greatly surprised thatthere could be anyone in Warsaw who did not know and was notinterested in the theater. 

"I do not go to the theater at all and I do not read the papers, " heanswered. 

"Impossible!"

"One can see right away that you must not be more than twenty yearsold, for you cry out in amazement, 'Impossible!' and look at me asthough I were a lunatic or a barbarian. "

"But after talking with you, it was impossible for me to assume evenfor a moment that . . . "

"That I am not interested in the theater, yes, that I do not readthe papers, " he concluded for her. 

"I can't even understand why. "

"Well, because that does not interest me at all, " he answeredsimply. 

"Are you not at all interested in what is going on in the world, inhow people are living, what they are doing, what they are thinking?"

"No. To you that doubtless appears monstrous; nevertheless it isentirely natural. Do our peasants interest themselves in the theateror in world affairs? They do not. Isn't that true?"

"Yes, but they are peasants and that is entirely different. "

"It is the same thing, merely with this addition; that for them yourfamous and great men do not exist at all and it doesn't make theslightest difference to them whether Newton or Shakespeare everlived or not. And they are just as well off with their ignorance, just as well. "

Janina became silent, for what he had said appeared to herparadoxical and not very true. 

"What will I learn from your newspapers and your theaters? Merelythat people love, hate, and fight one another the same as ever; thatevil and brute force continue to reign as they always have done;that the world and life are merely a big mill in which brains andconsciences are ground to dust. It is more comfortable to knownothing rather than that, " he continued. 

"But is it right for anyone to seclude himself so egoistically fromall that is going on in the world?" asked Janina. 

"Precisely in that lies wisdom. To desire nothing for ourselves, care for nothing, and be indifferent that is what we ought to aimat. "

"Is it possible to attain such a state of complete apathy?"

"It is attained through the experience of life and through thinking. Remember that the smallest pleasure, a mere momentary satisfaction, always costs us more dearly than it is really worth. The average manwill not, for instance, pay a thousand rubles for a pear, for heknows that would be an insane absurdity, and moreover, he knows therelative value of a thousand rubles and of a pear. But out of thecapital of his life he is ready to squander thousands for meretrifles--for a light love affair that lasts only as long as it takesa two cent pear to ripen, for he has never considered the almostpriceless value of his own vital energy and becomes blind to all, like a bull when the toreador flashes a red rag before his eyes, andpays for that blindness with a part of his life. The majority ofhuman beings die, not from natural necessity, like a lamp when itsoil has burned out, but from bankruptcy, from squandering theirpowers and strength on foolish things that are worth a thousandtimes less than one day of life. "

"I would not want to live such a cold and calculated life withoutfrenzies, dreams, and love. "

"The world would not come to an end, if people did not love. "

"It would be better to kill one's self than to live and dry up likea tree. "

"Suicide is the vulgar cry of the animal who suffers; it is therebellion of the atom against the laws of the universe. One mustallow the candle of one's life to burn out slowly and calmly to thevery end--in that lies happiness. "

"So that is happiness?" asked Janina, feeling a sudden chillpenetrating her soul. 

"Yes. Peace is happiness. To negate everything, to kill one'sdesires and passions, to tear out of oneself illusions and whimsthat is the way to attain it. It means to hold fast your soul in thegrip of self-knowledge and prevent it from dissipating itself infoolish things. "

"Who would want to live under such a yoke? What soul could endureit?"

"The soul is knowledge. "

"So you advocate nothing but stony indifference and peace! Never toknow of feel anything else but this! No, I prefer the ordinary trendof life. "

"There is still another way: the best remedy for our mentalsufferings is to expand our hearts, to become one with nature. "

"Let us drop that. I don't like to speak about it, for it stirs metoo strongly. "

They both remained silent for a long while. The old man gazed intothe water and mumbled something to himself, while Janina was rapt inthought. 

"All is foolishness, " he began anew. "Behold and wonder at thewater, if nothing more; it will suffice you for a long time. Observethe birds, the stars, and the elements; trace the growth of thetrees, listen to the wind, drink in perfumes and hues and everywhereyou will find unparalleled, everlasting miracles. It will replacefor you entirely life among people. Only do not gaze at nature withthe eyes of the vulgar, for then the most beautiful bird songs willsound to you like a mere screeching; the most majestic forest willseem nothing but so much kindling wood; in animals you will seenothing but meat for food; the meadows will appear to you as so muchhay; for then, instead of feeling, you will be calculating. "

"All human beings are like that. "

"There are a few who can read from the book of nature and find in itsustenance for their life. "

Again they became silent. 

The sun began to sink behind the hills on the opposite shore and toshine ever more coldly as though it were burnt out, dyeing the waterblood red with its parting rays. The thickets seemed to shrink, forthey appeared to grow lower and wider at their bases. The yellowishsands on the river bank became shrouded by the gray dusk. Thedistant horizon seemed to sink away in the mists which rose up asthough they were the smoke of the burnt-out, smoldering sun. An evendeeper silence descended and enveloped the earth in sleep, as thoughit were weary of the labors of the day. 

Janina pondered over the words of the old man and a quiet, gloomysadness filled her heart and cast a vague and shadowy fear over hermind. A feeling of passive submission and torpor overcame her. 

She arose to go, for it was already growing dark. 

"Are you going?" she asked the old man. 

"Yes, it is already time and it is quite a way to Warsaw. "

"Then we shall go together. "

He put away his fishing tackle in his cane, deposited the fish in asmall can and began to walk along with Janina at a swift enoughpace. 

"I do not know your name, " he began to say slowly, "and I'm not atall interested in that, but I see that you must not be very happy inlife. I am a crazy old man, as my neighbors call me, and an oldmason, as the town gossips like to add; I'm alone and, reconciled tomy fate, I am awaiting the end. Some time ago I knew a little ofwhat it means to suffer and love, but that is past long ago, longago, " he whispered, gazing as it were, into a distant past, with afaint smile of remembrance on his face. "The greatest boon that manpossesses is his ability to forget, otherwise he could not live atall. But all this does not interest you in the least, does it? Isometimes chatter nonsense, catch myself talking to myself, andoften forget things, for I'm just an old man, you see. You have anhonest-looking face, so I will give you this bit of advice; wheneveryou suffer, when everything disappoints you and life becomesunbearable flee from the city, go into the open country, breathe inthe fresh air, bathe in the sunlight, gaze at the sky, think abouteternity and pray . . . And you will forget all your troubles. Youwill feel better and stronger. The misery of the people of to-dayarises from their estrangement from nature and from God, fromloneliness of the soul. And I will tell you one more thing; forgiveeverything and be merciful to all. People are bad only through theirignorance, therefore you be good. The greatest wisdom is in thegreatest kindness. I am here every day while it is warm. Perhaps weshall meet again sometime. Good-bye, and may you be happy. " Henodded his head kindly in farewell. 

She gazed a long time after him until he vanished from her sightnear the church of St. Mary. Janina rubbed her eyes, for it seemedto her that this meeting had been merely a hallucination. 

"No, that cannot be, " she whispered to herself, for she still feltupon her face the pure gaze of his peaceful old eyes and heard hisvoice saying: "Be good! Pray! Forgive!" She repeated the words toherself as she walked along the street. 

"Forgive!" and she saw her father and afterwards the theater, Cabinski, Majkowska, Kotlicki, Mme. Anna, and Sowinska andremembered those days of suffering, abuse, and insult. 

"Be good!" and she saw again Mirowska, who bore the most painfulwrongs with a smile, who never did anyone any harm, and yet was thelaughing stock of the entire company. Then, there was Wolska, who atthe expense of her own life saved her child from death and who wascheated and forced into poverty. There was Cabinska's nursesacrificing herself for a stranger's children. There was, too, theold stage-director, slighted by everybody; there were the peasantsin the country, treated like animals, and the exploited workmen inthe cities. There were all the swindles, cheatings, and crimes whichwere going on continually. Janina felt that something within her wastrembling, breaking, and crying out in protest; that the sufferingof all humanity was pouring into her soul; that all the injustice, all the wrongs, all the suffering and tears stood before her, and agrave voice from above was saying: "Be good, forgive, pray, " whileround about her a jeering laughter arose, as though in response toit. 

She arrived at her home and for a long time could not calm herself. She pressed her hands to her head as though trying to still thosetumultuous thoughts that were whirling through her brain in suchconfusion that she could not distinguish truth from falsehood. Forin a moment of clairvoyant vision she had seen that both the goodand the bad suffered equally, that all were struggling, all wereclamoring for salvation and protesting against life. 

"I shall go mad! I shall go mad!" Janina whispered to herself. 

On the next morning Wladek came to see her. He seemed to be so goodand kissed her hand so tenderly that she could not help noticing hisdevotion. He complained about Cabinski and aired at length hisgrievances against his mother. 

Janina regarded him with a cold look, for she understood almost atonce that he wished to borrow money from her. 

"Go and buy me some powder, for I must go to the theater to-day, "she said to him. 

Wladek rose eagerly to fulfill her behest. 

"Close the door after you, for I am going to dress. "

He closed the door with the latch to which he had his own key, anddeparted. 

On the street, almost at the very door Wladek spied the counselor. Asudden idea flashed through his mind, for he smiled and cordiallyapproached the old man. 

"Good morning, esteemed counselor. "

"Good morning, how are you feeling, eh?"

"Thank you, I am entirely well, only Miss Orlowska is ill. Thedirectress has just asked me to see how she was getting along. "

"What? Miss Janina is ill? They told me so behind the scenes, but Idid not believe it, for I thought . . . "

"Yes, she is sick. I am just now going for some medicine. "

"Is she dangerously ill?"

"Oh no, but would you like to convince yourself personally?"

The counselor started violently, but then, adjusting his glasses, hesaid: "Indeed, I would like to. I wished to do so many times before, but she is so inaccessible. "

"I will smooth the way for you. "

"You are joking. How can that be done? Although, considering myfriendly attitude toward her . . . "

"You can see her. Here is the latchkey to her room. She will receiveyou; she even told me that she would be pleased to have her friendsvisit her, for she spends entire days all alone. "

"But if . . . "

"Go. If she received me, she will receive you all the more readily. I will be back in about an hour and then we can have a chat. " Sosaying, Wladek left hurriedly. 

The counselor wiped his glasses, fidgeted about nervously, and hadnot yet made up his mind whether to enter or not, when Wladek turnedback and called:

"My dear counselor! Lend me four rubles, will you? I would firsthave to look for Cabinski to get the money and the medicine isneeded here right away. I have taken an unpleasant task upon myself, but what is one going to do when companionship demands it? I willreturn the money to you this evening, only please don't say anythingabout this. And pardon my boldness. "

The counselor willingly reached for his pocket book and, handingWladek ten rubles said: "I am glad I can help you. If any more isneeded, tell Miss Janina to mention only a word to me and she canhave it. "

Wladek went off with the money, whistling merrily. 

The counselor entered the house, quietly opened the door to Janina'sapartment, took off his hat and coat and walked into the room. 

Janina was combing her hair and paid no attention to the opening ofthe door, for she thought that Wladek had returned. 

The counselor coughed a few times and approached her with extendedhand. 

Janina sprang up hastily and threw a scarf over her naked shoulders. 

"Mr. Wladyslaw has just told me that you were ill, so I thought itwould be a sin not to come to see you, " said the counselor, speakingrapidly, adjusting his glasses and smiling a colorless, banal smile. 

Janina stared at him in amazement, for a moment, but when she feltthe touch of his cold, clammy hand in her own, she grew red withanger, sprang toward the door so violently that the scarf fell tothe floor, revealing the stately lines of her shoulders, and openingthe door with an energetic gesture, cried: "Leave the room!"

"But I give you my word of honor that I hadn't even the slightestintention of offending you. As a well-wishing friend I came heremerely to offer you my sympathy. Mr. Wladyslaw . . . "

"Is a scoundrel!"

"To that I'll agree, but you needn't get angry at me and expressyour indignation in such a drastic manner; that is a trifletoo . . . "

"Please leave the room immediately!" cried Janina, trembling withanger. 

"A comedienne! A comedienne, upon my word!" whispered the counselorto himself, hastily putting on his overcoat, for he was irritatedand offended. He hurried out, angrily slamming the door after him. 

"Oh, what a scoundrel! What a scoundrel! and I belong to such aman . . . I! They are jackals, not human beings, jackals! Whereverone turns there is mud and filth!"

And so great grew Janina's indignation, that she cried almost aloudthrough her tears: "Base wretches! wretches! wretches!"

Soon afterwards, Wladek returned bringing with him the powder, abottle of whisky and a package of sandwiches. He eyed Janinacuriously and looked about the room. 

"The counselor was here!" she flung at him harshly. 

The actor laughed cynically and exclaimed in a barroom jargon, "Icornered him. Now we can have a little feast. "

Janina was about to tell him how base he was, but suddenly thererang in her ears those words: "Be good! Forgive!"

She restrained herself and began to laugh, but so harshly and solong that she fell upon the bed and, tossing about on it, began torepeat amid that dreadful, hysterical laughter: "Be good! Forgive!"

After a week's intermission there began again for Janina her formerhard life and an even harder battle, because now it had become astruggle for mere daily bread. 

She sang, as before, in the chorus, dressed as a chorus girl, peeredthrough the curtain at the public, whose attendance at the theaterwas decreasing every day, strayed about the stage and thedressing-rooms during the intermissions, and listened to thewhispered conversations, the music, and the quarrels. But howdifferent now were her thoughts and her feelings, how different nowand unlike her former self was Janina!

She no longer sought in the eyes of the public enthusiasm and loveof art, nor did she cast challenging glances at the front rows ofseats, for poverty had taught her how to estimate from the stage thesize of the audience and from it to draw deductions as to theproportionate size of her salary. Poverty taught her to takecovertly from the storeroom the bread that was often used on thestage and to eat it on the way home; frequently this was her entiredaily sustenance. No one admired her now, or escorted her home; nordid she contend with anyone about art. 

Kotlicki had completely vanished, the counselor was angry at Janinaand kept away from the theater, while Wladek spoke with her only attimes and visited her ever more rarely, offering as his excuse hismother's growing weakness and the need of being with her. 

Janina knew that he was lying, but she did not contradict him, forhe was entirely indifferent to her. She felt a deep contempt forhim, but could not break with him entirely because there stilllingered deep down in her consciousness a memory of the happy hoursthey had spent together. She treated him coldly and did not let himkiss her, but she could not tell him outright that he was ascoundrel, for he was, in a way, the last link uniting her strangesoul with the world. 

Janina had grown frightfully thin. Her complexion became pale andunhealthy, and from her enlarged glassy eyes there looked forth adreadful and constant hunger! She walked about the theater like ashadow, apparently quiet and calm, but with that feeling ofunceasing hunger mercilessly tearing her within and with despair inher face. 

There were whole days when she had not a bite of food, when she felta painful emptiness in her head and heard only one thing echoingthrough her brain: "If I could only get something to eat! Somethingto eat!" Aside from that one desire, everything vanished from hermind and had no importance. 

A similar poverty existed throughout the whole company. The womenshifted as best they could, but the men, particularly the morehonest ones, sold everything they possessed, even their wigs, tosave themselves. 

With what terror they awaited each evening! "Are we going to playto-night?" This whisper could be heard all over the theater: in thedressing-rooms, behind the scenes, in the restaurant-garden wherethe autumn wind frolicked, and on the deserted veranda, where thewaiters, vainly waiting for guests, repeated it. It was alsorepeated by Gold, who sat huddled in his box office, shivering withcold. 

An oppressive silence reigned in the dressing-rooms. The funniestjokes of Glas could not chase the clouds of worry from the brows ofthe actors. They became careless in their make-up and none of themlearned their roles, for everybody was waiting in dread suspense forthe performance and every now and then going to the box office andasking in a whisper: "Are we going to play to-night?"

Cabinski presented a new play every day, but he could not draw thepublic. He gave The Trip Around Warsaw and The Robbers, and stillthe house was empty. They played such curtain-raisers as Don Cesarde Bazan, The Statue of the Commander, and The Fortune Teller of LaVoisin, but the theater remained as deserted as ever. 

"For goodness' sake, what do you want?" the director cried to thepublic from behind the curtain. 

"Do you think they themselves know what they want? If there werethree hundred people present, then another three hundred wouldappear, but when there are only fifty with the addition of cold andrain, then only twenty remain, " the editor explained to Cabinski, for of all those numerous acquaintances who used to come behind thescenes he alone remained, the rest having dispersed with the firstrains. 

"The public is a herd that does not know where it is going to grazeon the following day, " said Mr. Peter, with animosity. 

Oh yes, they hated that public, and yet prayed to it. They cursedit, called it "a herd" and "cattle, " threatened it with their fistsand spat upon it, but only let that public appear in larger numbers, and they fell upon their faces before it and felt a deep gratitudetoward that capricious lady, who had a different humor each day andeach day bestowed her favors upon someone else. 

"The public is a harlot! a harlot!" whispered Topolski threateningly. "To-day she is with a monarch, to-morrow with a clown!"

"You have told the truth, but it will not give you even a ruble, "answered Wawrzecki, whose humor still survived, but had alreadybecome sharp and bitter, for Mimi had left the company and gone tojoin another one at Posen. 

Several members of the company had already left, although therestill remained a whole week till the end of the season. Especiallythe choruses had almost entirely dispersed, for they suffered themost from poverty. 

The rains continued to fall in the morning, the afternoon, and theevening. The atmosphere at the theater became unbearable. There weredraughts in the dressing-rooms, and mud covered the floors, for theroof leaked everywhere. The cold was intense. 

To Janina it seemed that this theater was slowly falling apart andburying everyone among its ruins, while that other one on TheatricalPlace stood strong and invincible. 

Its ponderous walls had grown black from the rains and it appearedeven sterner and mightier than before and filled Janina with apious, unexplainable awe whenever she gazed at it. It sometimesseemed to her that this vast edifice rested its columns on piles ofcorpses and that it drank the blood, the lives, and the brains ofthe actors in the smaller theaters and throve and grew mighty onthem. 

"I shall go mad! I shall go mad!" often whispered Janina, pressingher burning head with her hands, for dreams and hallucinationstormented her even more than hunger. 

There was still another thing which made her deathly silent, so thatshe would sit for whole hours listening within herself, and thinkingof those strange, indefinable impressions and feelings whichpervaded her ever more frequently. Janina felt that somethingdreadful was happening within her, that those sudden fits oftrembling and weeping which would seize her without any explainablecause, those violently changing moods to which she gave way andthose strange sufferings were somehow unnatural and resulted fromsomething about which she feared to think. She had no mother, noranyone in whom she could confide and who would enlighten her, butthere came a moment when with womanly instinct she knew that she wasabout to become a mother. 

Janina wept for a long time after that discovery, but her tears werenot tears of despair, but only of tender pity, sensitiveness andshame at the same time. She felt then that death had crouched behindher and was standing so close that it sent a shudder of frenzythrough her entire being and cast her into an apatheticindifference. She ceased to think and surrendered herself passively, with the fatalism of people who have suffered long or who have beencrushed by some overwhelming misfortune, to the wave that bore heron and did not even ask whither it was taking her. 

One day, unable to endure any longer the sharp pangs of hunger, Janina began to look around her room for something which she mightsell. She began feverishly to rummage in her trunks. She had only afew light theatrical costumes. 

Sowinska was again reminding her almost every day about her overduerent and that daily nagging was an unbearable torment. Janina couldnot ask her to sell those costumes, for she knew that Sowinska wouldunscrupulously keep the money, so she decided to sell them herself. 

She wrapped one of the costumes in a piece of paper and went to thedoor to wait for a buyer of old clothes, but the porter was walkingabout the yard, servant girls were going to and fro, and in thewindows of the houses she saw the faces of women who had often castscornful glances at her. No, she could not sell here, for in amoment the whole house would know about her poverty. She went to oneof the adjoining houses and waited a short while. 

"Any old things to buy! Any old things to buy!" came the hoarsevoice of an old Jew. 

Janina called him. The Jew turned his head and came to her. He wasas dirty as he was old. She went with him to the stoop of somehouse. 

"Do you want to sell anything?" asked the Jew, laying his bag andstick on the stairs and bending his thin face and red eyes over thepackage. 

"Yes, " answered Janina, unwrapping the paper. 

The Jew took the costume in his dirty hands, spread it out in thesunlight, looked over it a few times, smiled imperceptibly, put itback in the paper, wrapped it up, picked up his bag and stick andsaid, "Such fineries are not for me. " He began to descend thestairway, derisively smacking his lips. 

"I will sell it cheap, " Janina called after him, thinking with fearthat perhaps she might get at least a ruble or a half-ruble for it. 

"If you have some old shoes or pillow-slips, I will buy them, butsuch a thing is of no use to me. Who will buy it? Rubbish!"

"I will sell it cheap, " she whispered. 

"Well, how much do you want for it?"

"A ruble. "

"May I fall down dead, if that is worth more than twenty kopecks. What is it worth, who will buy it?" and he came back, unwrapped thecostume, and again examined it indifferently. 

"The ribbons alone cost me a few rubles, " said Janina, and shebecame silent, deciding that she would take the twenty kopecks. 

"Ribbons! What's that . . . All pieces!" chattered the Jew, glancingover the costume hastily. "Well, I will give you thirty kopecks. Doyou want it? As I'm an honest man, I can't give you more . . . Ihave a good heart, but I can't. Well, do you want it?"

This barter filled Janina with such disgust, shame, and grief, thatshe felt like throwing down everything and running away. 

The Jew counted out the money to her, took the costume and wentaway. From the window of her room Janina saw how in the full lightof the yard he examined the dress once more. 

"What shall I do with this?" she whispered helplessly, pressing inher hand the dirty and sticky kopecks. 

Janina owed money to Mme. Anna for the rent of her room, to thetender of the theater-buffet, and to a few of her companions of thechorus, but she no longer thought of this, only took the thirtykopecks and went out to the store to buy herself something to eat. 

She returned home, and having eaten, she wished to take a littlenap, but Sowinska entered and told her that someone was waiting forher for the last half-hour and immediately there enteredNiedzielska's servant girl with eyes all red from crying. 

"Please Miss, come along with me, for my mistress is very sick andwants to see you without fail, " she said. 

"Is Madame Niedzielska so seriously ill?" cried Janina, springing upfrom the bed and hurriedly putting on her hat. 

"The priest has already been there this afternoon with the sacramentand she has only a few hours to live, " whispered the faithful oldservant with tears in her eyes. "She can scarcely draw her breathand all I understood her to say was that I should run to you andtell you that she wants to see you right away. And where is Mr. Wladyslaw?"

"How can I know? He ought to be with his mother, " answered Janina. 

"He ought to, but he is a worthless son, " whispered the servant inhollow tones. "Already for a week he has not been at home, for hehad an awful quarrel with his mother. My God! My God! how he sworeat her and abused her and even wanted to strike her. O mercifulLord, that is the way he repaid her for loving him so dearly thatshe even denied herself food to supply him with money. She was sucha miser that she did not want to spend money for a doctor or anymedicines and he . . . Oh! oh, God will punish him severely for hismother's tears! I know that you are not to blame for it, miss . . . I can guess that . . . But . . . " she whispered quietly, hobblingalongside of Janina and every now and then wiping her eyes, all redfrom crying and loss of sleep. 

Janina hardly heard a word of what she was saying for the noise andthe din in the street and the splashing of water flowing from thedrainpipes to the sidewalk drowned out everything else. She wentalong only because the dying woman had summoned her. 

The first room of Niedzielska's home was almost filled with peopleand Janina greeted them as she passed through it, but no oneanswered her and all eyes followed her with a peculiar curiosity. 

In the room where Niedzielska lay, there were also a few personsseated about her bed. Janina went straight to the sick woman. Shewas lying flat on her back, but fixed her eyes upon Janina as soonas she had crossed the threshold. 

On Janina's entrance the persons in the room stopped talking soabruptly that the sudden silence sent a strange thrill through her. She met Niedzielska's gaze and could not tear her eyes away from it. She sat down alongside of the bed, greeting her in a subdued voice. 

The old woman grasped her hand tightly and in a quiet voice with avery strong accent asked: "Where is Wladek?"

Her brows knit themselves in an expression of severity and somethinglike hatred gleamed in the yellowish whites of her eyes. 

"I don't know. How am I to know?" answered Janina almost frightenedby her question. 

"You don't know, you thief! You have stolen my son and yet, you daretell me that you don't know!" gasped Niedzielska, striving to raiseher voice a little, but it sounded hollow and wild. Her eyes openedever wider and gleamed with hatred and menace, her pale lipsquivered nervously, and her thin, yellow face twitched continually. She raised herself a bit on her bed and in a hoarse voice, as thoughrallying her remaining strength cried: "You streetwalker! You thief!You . . . " and she fell back exhausted, with a hollow groan. 

Janina sprang up, as though an electric shock had passed throughher, but the old woman gripped her wrist so tightly that she fellback again on her chair, unable to free her hand. She glanced aboutdesperately at everybody, in the room, but their faces were stern. She closed her eyes for a moment to shut out the sight of theyellowish wrinkled faces of those women who stood facing her likespecters glaring at her with their skeleton-like faces in theshadowy twilight of the room. 

"So that is she! So young and already . . . "

"A base serpent. "

"I would kill her like a dog, if she tried to do the same with myson. "

"I would have her locked up and sent to the workhouse. "

"In my days such women as that were put into the pillory as apunishment. I remember well. "

"Be quiet! quiet!" whispered an old man trying to pacify the women. 

"And for her he ran away to the comedians, for her he squandered somuch money, for such a low-down thing as she, he beat his mother!May you perish, you base serpent!"

Such were the voices full of hatred and scorn that hissed all aboutJanina and the poisonous malignity that dripped from their words andglances flooded her heart with an ocean of pain and shame. Shewanted to cry out: "Mercy, people! I am innocent, " but her head bentever lower on her breast and she had an ever dimmer consciousness ofwhere she was and what was happening to her. Janina's soul hadalready been weakened too much by misery to resist this blow. Animmense wave of fear began to shake her, for it seemed to her thatthe hand of the old woman which held her so tightly and thosedreadful eyes bulging from their sockets were drawing her down intoa dark abyss and that this was death and the end of everything. 

Later, Janina no longer heard anything that was being said and sawno one but the dying woman. At moments, she still felt a desire tospring up and run away from there but it was a mere flicker of willthat passed through her nerves without reaching her consciousness. 

So many previous sufferings, and now this blow at her very heart, benumbed her brain with a quiet madness. She grew frightfully paleand sat as though dead, gazing at the face of the dying woman. Thosesame fragments of thoughts and visions now swarmed through her brainthat had done so once before: that same vast mass of greenish watersseemed to submerge her consciousness. She was not even aware thatthey had torn her away from Niedzielska and shoved her into a cornerwhere she stood immovable and bereft of her senses. 

Niedzielska was dying. It seemed as though she had only been waitingfor Janina before giving herself up to death, for anger and hatredkept her alive a few hours longer. Now, there followed a generaldissolution. She lay there rigid and straight, with her hands uponthe coverlet, which they tugged at automatically, and with her sadeyes gazing upward as though into the eternity into which she wasentering. 

The consecrated candle shed a yellowish light upon her faceimpearled with the sweat of her last struggle and death agony. Hergray hair, scattered in a disheveled mass upon the pillow, formed asort of background upon which appeared in sharper relief herwithered head, shaking with the unconscious and frightfulconvulsions of death. She breathed heavily and slowly and gaspedwith effort, catching the air with her pale lips. At moments herface would writhe and her mouth twitch with a dreadful spasm of painand she would raise her hands as though she wanted to tear apart herthroat to get more air. Her white and fever-coated tongue slippedspasmodically from her mouth and so tense did her body become in thestruggle with death that the veins stood out like black whip cordson; her temples and throat. 

The silence was full of weeping and sobbing of those kneeling aboutand the awful groans of the dying woman. Feverishly whisperedprayers, tear-streaming eyes, the sobbing of the servant and thechildren filled the room with an atmosphere of dreadful andoverwhelming tragedy. The dark shadows at the farther end of theroom trembled as though engulfing it all. The candles diffused ayellowish, ghastly light that seemed to steep everything inboundless grief. 

The room filled up completely with kneeling people and only she, wholay there rigid, unconscious, and dying, reigned from the throne ofdeath over that bowed throng begging for mercy. 

An old man with silvery gray hair made his way to the bed, kneltdown, took a prayer book from his pocket and, by the light of thecandle, began to read the Penitential Psalms. He had a clear andmelodious voice and the words of the psalms, like a murmuringrainbow, or like flashes of lightning full of terror, tears, might, and heavenly grace, floated above the heads of all those present:

"Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak; O Lord, heal me, for mybones are vexed. "

"Thou art my hiding place; Thou shalt preserve me from trouble . . . "

"Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in theLord, mercy shall compass him about. "

"My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore and my kinsmenstand afar off. "

"They also that seek after my life lay snares for me; and they thatseek for my hurt speak mischievous things and imagine deceits allday long. "

The words rang out ever stronger and eddied through the air like thebreath of a mighty power that bent low all foreheads and cast themdown into the dust with tears of sorrow, penance, and supplication. All those present repeated them after the old man and that confused, tearful and monotonous murmur of voices awoke Janina from hertorpor. She felt that she was still alive, so she knelt down on thethreshold of the room and with fever-parched lips whispered thosesweet words long since forgotten, and drew from them a deep comfortfull of sadness and tenderness. 

"Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall bewhiter than snow. "

"Hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go downinto the pit. "

"And of thy mercy cut off mine enemies, and destroy all them thatafflict my soul, for I am thy servant. "

She repeated the words fervently and large tears rolled down herface, uniting with the tears of all the other mourners and purgingher soul of all sorrows and memory of what had passed. But after awhile those tears began to stream so freely and stifle her so thatJanina quietly arose and left the place. 

On the street she met Wladek running toward the house in haste andfear. He stopped to ask her about his mother, but she went onwithout even glancing at him. 

Almost all feelings were dead within Janina, save that of a deathlyweariness. She entered the lighted Church of St. Ann on the CracowSuburb and, seating herself in one of the pews, gazed at theilluminated altar and the throng of kneeling worshipers. She heardthe solemn tones of the organ and a wave of song rising above it. She saw looking at her from the walls and the altars the peacefuland happy faces of saints, but all this did not awaken a singleemotion in her. 

"Thou wilt cut off mine enemies and destroy all them that afflict mysoul. Thou wilt destroy them . . . " Janina repeated mechanically andleft the church. No, no, she could not pray she could not. 

Janina slept after all this with a deep, stony sleep that was freefrom dreams. 

On the following day Cabinski gave her a big role that used to beMimi's. Janina accepted it with indifference. With the sameindifference she went to Niedzielska's funeral. She walked at theend of the procession unnoticed by anyone and gazed indifferently atthe thousands of graves in the cemetery and at the coffin and not ascintilla of feeling stirred in her even at the sound of the sobbingover the grave. Something had broken within her and she had lost allability to feel what was going on about her. 

In the evening Janina went to the theater for the performance. Shedressed as usual and sat thoughtlessly gazing at the rows of candlespasted to the tables, at the scribbled walls and at the rows ofactresses sitting before their mirrors. 

Sowinska continually hung about the dressing-room and observed hercuriously. 

Her companions spoke to Janina, but she did not answer them. Everynow and then, she fell into a state of torpor in which one beholdswithout seeing anything and lives without feeling, while deepwithin, at the very bottom of her consciousness, there was reflectedthe image of that dying woman and there swarmed and hissed thosestinging and scornful whispers of her neighbors, mixed with thewords of the Penitential Psalms. 

Suddenly, a tremor ran through Janina, for a voice reached her fromthe stage which sounded like Grzesikiewicz's; so she arose and wentout. 

Wladek was standing on the stage, engaged in a lively conversationwith Majkowska, whose naked shoulders he was kissing. 

Janina paused behind one of the scenes, for some feeling without aname passed through her heart, like the sharp, cold edge of adagger, but was swiftly gone again, awakening in her a certainknowledge. 

"Mr. Niedzielski!" she called. 

The actor threw back his shoulders, while across his clean-shavenface there passed a shadow of impatience and boredom. He whisperedyet a few words into the ear of Mela, who smiled and departed, andthen, without trying to disguise his ill humor, he approachedJanina. 

"Did you want anything?" he asked irascibly. 

"Yes . . . "

In the despondency that filled her at that moment Janina wanted totell him that she was unhappy and ill. She longed to hear a warmword of sympathy and felt an irresistible need of telling hertroubles to someone and of weeping on some friendly breast, but onhearing the sharp tone of Wladek's voice, she suddenly rememberedhow much she had suffered through him and how base he was, so shesuppressed those desires within herself. 

"Are we going to play to-day?" she asked. 

"We are. There are about a hundred rubles in the treasury. "

"Ask them for some money for me. "

"What do you think! Do you want me to make a fool of myself?Moreover, I'm going right home. "

Janina glanced at him and said in a quiet, expressionless voice:"Take me home, for I feel so very miserable. "

"I have no time, I must immediately run to my own home, for alreadythey are all waiting for me there. "

"Oh, how base you are! How base you are!" she whispered. 

Wladek recoiled a few steps, not knowing whether he should smile, orpretend to be offended. 

"Are you saying that to me, to me?" he asked. He did not dare toswear, for that girl with her proud face and glance of a ladyimposed respect upon him and thrust back into his throat, as itwere, the brutalities that he wanted to hurl at her. 

"To you!" Janina answered. "You are base! You are the basest personin the world . . . Do you hear! . . . The basest!"

"Janina!" he cried endearingly, as though he wanted to shieldhimself thereby from her accusation. 

"I forbid you to address me in that manner, it insults me!"

"Have you gone crazy, or what has happened to you? What sort offarce do you call that!" he choked out in anger. 

"I have found out what you are and I scorn you with my whole soul. "

"Whew! So that is the kind of pathetic role you have chosen to play?Are you preparing it for your debut at the Warsaw Theater?"

Janina answered him only with a look of scorn and walked away. 

Sowinska came up to her and with a mysterious and cruel pity in hervoice whispered: "It isn't good for you to get so irritated andalso, you ought not lace yourself so tightly. "

"Why?"

"It may harm you, because . . . Because . . . " and she whispered therest into Janina's ear. 

The blood rushed to Janina's face with shame at the thought thatSowinska had recognized her condition which she was seeking toconceal. She had no more strength left to reply to her, nor timeeither, for she had to go on the stage. 

They were playing The Peasant Emigration and Janina appeared in thefirst act as a super. 

In the men's dressing-room that evening, a storm broke out. In theintermission before the so-called "Christmas Eve" scene of the play, Topolski, who was acting the part of "Bartek Kozica, " sent toCabinski a letter, or a sort of ultimatum demanding fifty rubles forhimself and Majkowska and, in case of a denial, refusing to play anyfurther. While waiting for Cabinski's reply, he began slowly toremove his make-up. 

Cabinski came running almost with tears in his eyes and cried: "Iwill give you twenty rubles. Oh, oh! you people have no mercy onme!"

"Give me fifty rubles and we shall continue to play; if you don'tthen . . . " Here he unglued one half of his mustache and began totake off his leggings. 

"For God's sake man! there is only one hundred rubles in all in thetreasury and that is hardly enough to cover the expenses. "

"Let me have fifty rubles immediately, or else you can finish theplay yourself or return the public its money, " calmly said Topolski, pulling off his other legging. 

"Up till now, I had thought that you, at least, were a man! Justthink what you are doing to us all, " pleaded Cabinski. 

"Don't you see, Director . . . I am undressing. "

The intermission was being prolonged and the public outside wasbeginning to shout and stamp its feet with impatience. 

"No, I should sooner have expected death than that! And you, who aremy best friend, are you going to go back on me now?" continuedCabinski. 

"My dear Director, there's no use talking any further. You can fooleveryone else, but not me. "

"But I haven't the money. If I give you thirty rubles now, I willhave nothing left with which to pay the rent of the theater!" criedCabinski in despair, running about the dressing-room. 

"I have said: if you do not give us fifty rubles, we shall gostraight home. "

In the hall there began to rise a very pandemonium of shouts andcatcalls. 

"All right, here is fifty rubles, take them. You are robbing yourown companions, but you don't care a rap about that, for you'll havesomething with which to organize your own company. Here, take them, but that ends all relations between us!"

"Don't worry about my company; I shall reserve the position of astage-hand for you. "

"Sooner will you check coats in my theater, before I join yours. "

"Silence, you clown!"

"I'll call the police and they'll quiet you right away!" shouted theinfuriated Cabinski. 

"I'll silence you immediately, you circus performer!" criedTopolski, who had just finished dressing, and, taking Cabinski bythe collar, he gave him a kick that sent him flying out of thedressing-room; then he himself went out on the stage. 

The performance was concluded peacefully, but a new quarrel startedaround the box office. The actors and actresses stood there in aclose group so that only their heads and faces, shining with thegrease used to wash off the paint, were visible in the gaslight. They were all shouting for money and demanding their overduesalaries. They shook their fists threateningly at the cashier'swindow, their eyes flashed lightning, and their voices were hoarsefrom shouting. 

Cabinski, still red and trembling from the abuse that had just methim, quarreled with everybody and swore and wanted to pay only theusual installments. 

"Whoever isn't satisfied with what he gets, let him go to Topolski!It's all the same to me . . . " he cried. 

Janina approached the window and said: "Director, you promised topay me to-day. "

"I haven't the money!"

"But neither have I, " she begged quietly. 

"I am not paying the others either, and yet, they do not importuneme as you do. "

"Mr. Cabinski, I am almost dying from hunger, " she answeredstraightforwardly. 

"Then go and earn some money. All the others know how to helpthemselves. I like naive women, but only on the stage. A comedienne!Go to Topolski, he will advance you the money. "

"Oh, Topolski assuredly won't let the members of his company sufferpoverty. He will pay each what is due him and will not cheatpeople!" cried Janina impulsively. 

"Then you can go straight to him and don't show up here again!"shouted Cabinski, driven to fury by the mention of Topolski. 

"Listen there, Director!" began Glas, but Janina listened no longerand, pushing her way through the crowd, left the theater. 

"Go and earn it . . . " she repeated to herself. 

She walked along the almost empty streets. The gas-lamps cast aghastly, yellowish glare like that of funeral tapers on the silentand deserted thoroughfares and alleys. The dark-blue vault of thesky hung over the city like a huge canopy embroidered with brightlyscintillating stars. A cool breeze swept down the streets andchilled Janina to the marrow. 

"Go and earn it!" she again repeated to herself, passing before theGrand Theater. She had come here without being aware of it. 

Janina glanced at the building and turned back. An unbearable painracked her head, as though there was a burning iron ring about it. She was so utterly weak and worn-out that at moments she couldscarcely resist the desire to sit down on the curbstone and remainthere. Then again, so desperate a realization of her poverty filledher that she was almost ready to give herself to anyone who mightask, if she could only relieve that agonized trembling withinherself, that almost deathly weakness and exhaustion. 

She dragged herself heavily along the streets, for she no longerknew what to do, and the chill night air, the silence, and thatdeathly weariness gave her a sort of painful ecstasy. Before hereyes there hovered only phantom forms and fiery spots, so that sheknew not where she was or what was happening to her. She felt onlyone thing and that was that she would no longer be able to endureit. 

"What am I going to do further?" Janina asked thoughtlessly, lookingbefore herself. 

The silence of the sleeping city and the silence of the dark heavensseemed to be the only answer to her question. 

Janina felt as though she were falling swiftly down a steep inclineand that there, at the very bottom, lay the outstretched corpse ofNiedzielska. 

"Death!" she answered herself. "Death!" and she gazed fixedly atthat dead face with the congealed tears on its cheeks, and not fear, but an immense silence enveloped her soul. 

She looked all about her as though she were seeking for the cause ofthat deep silence at her side. 

Then, she began thinking of her father, of the theater, and ofherself, but as though they were things which she had only seen orread about. 

"What am I going to do?" Janina asked herself aloud after she hadreturned home. It was impossible for her to see or even to imaginewhat the morrow would be like. 

"In this condition I can't go to the theater, I can't go anywhere. But what am I going to do?" That question smote her now and then, aswith a club. 

Day began to dawn and flood the room with its drab and gray light, but Janina still sat on the same spot, gazing blankly out of thewindow, with deeply sunken eyes and whispering with lips blackenedby fever: "What am I going to do? What am I going to do?"

CHAPTER XI

The season ended. Cabinski was leaving for Plock with an entirelynew company, for Topolski had taken away his best forces and therest had scattered among various companies. 

In the pastry shop on Nowy Swiat, Krzykiewicz, who had broken withCiepieszewski, was organizing a company of his own. Stanislawski wasalso starting a small company on a profit-sharing basis. Topolskiwas already preparing his company for its trip to Lublin. 

The local garden-theaters were all closed for the season and adeathly silence reigned over them. The stages were boarded up andthe dressing-rooms and entrances locked. The verandas were strewnwith broken chairs and rubbish. The autumn leaves fluttered from thetrees and torn scraps of programs of the last performances rustledabout sadly in the breeze. The season was over. 

Nobody visited the theater any more, for the migratory birds werepreparing for their flight, only Janina from force of habit, stillwould come here, gaze a moment at the deserted haunts and returnagain. 

Cabinska wrote her a very cordial letter, inviting her to her home. Janina went there and found that they were already packing up fortheir journey. Immense trunks and baskets stood in the middle of therooms, a large pile of various stage paraphernalia together withmattresses and bedding lay on the floor the entire outfit of anomadic life. 

In Cabinska's room, Janina no longer found either the wreaths or thefurniture, or the canopied bed; there shone only the bare walls withthe plaster broken here and there by the hasty removal of picturesand the pulling out of hooks. A long basket stood in the middle ofthe room and the nurse, perspiring from her exertion, was packinginto it Pepa's wardrobe. Cabinska, with a cigarette in her mouth, directed the packing and continually scolded the children, who weretumbling in great glee over the mattresses and the straw strewnabout the packages. 

She greeted Janina with exaggerated cordiality and said: "There issuch a dust in here that it is unbearable. Nurse, be careful how youpack, so that you don't crush my dresses. Let us go out on thestreet, " she said to Janina, putting on her coat and hat. 

She pulled Janina along to her pastry shop and there, over a cup ofchocolate, began to apologize to her for the discourtesy thatCabinski had shown her at the box office. 

"Believe me, the director was so excited that he really did not knowwhat he was saying. And can you wonder at it? He was giving his bestefforts and even pawning his personal effects, only that the companymight lack nothing and, in the meanwhile, along comes Topolski, creates a rumpus and breaks up his company. Even a saint would losepatience in those circumstances and, moreover, Topolski told myhusband that you were going to join his company. "

Janina answered nothing, for she was now entirely indifferent towardthe whole matter, but when Cabinska told her that on that veryafternoon they were leaving for Plock and that she shouldimmediately pack her things, for the expressman would call for themdirectly, she answered with decision: "Thank you for your kindness, Mrs. Directress, but I shall not go. "

Cabinska could scarcely believe her ears and cried out in amazement:"Have you already secured an engagement and where?"

"Nowhere, nor do I intend to, " answered the girl. 

"How is that! Are you going to abandon the stage? You who have a bigfuture before you!"

"I have had more than enough of acting, " answered Janina withbitterness. 

"Come now, don't reproach me with it, you know it's your first yearon the stage and they wouldn't give you big roles at once, anywhere. "

"Oh, I am no longer going to try for them. "

"And I had already been planning that in Plock you would livetogether with us and that would not only make it easier for you, butmy daughter also could derive more benefit from it. Please think itover and I, on my part, assure you that you will also get roles. "

"No, no! I have enough of poverty and have absolutely no morestrength left to bear it any further and, moreover, I cannot, Icannot . . . " answered Janina quietly, with tears in her eyes, forthat proposal flashed before her mind like the dawn of a betterfuture and awakened for a moment her old enthusiasm and dreams ofartistic triumph. But immediately she thought of her presentcondition and the sufferings that she would have to endure on thataccount, so she added with even greater emphasis: "No, I cannot! Icannot!"

But she could not hold back the tears which continued to streamquietly down her face until even Cabinska was touched and, drawingnearer to her, whispered with sincere sympathy, "For God's sake whatis the matter with you? Tell me, perhaps I shall be able to helpyou. "

In reply Janina blushed faintly, warmly clasped Cabinska's hand, andhastily left the pastry shop. 

Tears were stifling her; life was stifling her. 

Immediately afterward Stanislawski came to Janina and urged her toleave with him for the small provincial towns. He was organizing acompany of from eight to nine persons in which each was to hold ashare. He offered Janina leading roles and spoke in glowing terms ofthe certain success that awaited them in the provincial towns. Heenumerated all those whom he was engaging: all young people andnovices, full of energy, zeal, and talent. And he promised himselfthat he would lead them along the path of true art, that his companywould be in the nature of a school for drama and that he would be areal teacher and father, who would make of these people true artistsworthy of the theater and its traditions. 

Janina refused Stanislawski briefly. She thanked him heartily forthe kindness he had shown her during the summer and took leave ofhim cordially, as though forever. 

When he had gone, she determined finally to end it all. She had notyet told herself decisively: "I will die!" So far, if someone hadtold her that she was contemplating suicide she would have denied itsincerely, but already that thought and desire were lurking in thesubconscious depths of her mind. 

Janina knew when the Cabinskis were leaving, so she went down to thesteamboat landing. She stood upon the bridge and watched them steamaway. She gazed at the gray waves of the Wisla splashing against thesides of the pier and at the distant horizon veiled in autumn mists, and such an intense sadness and grief overwhelmed her that she couldnot move from the spot, or tear her eyes away from the water. 

Night fell and Janina still stood there, gazing before her. The rowsof lights on the river banks sprang up from the darkness like goldenflowers and dotted the rocking, greenish surface of the water withquivering gleams. The din and hum of the city echoed dimly behindher, the hacks sped with noisy clatter across the bridge, the bellsof the tramcars clanged incessantly, crowds of people passed by withlaughter; sometimes the echo of a song reached Janina, or the merrytones of a hand organ, then again, a warm breath of wind, saturatedwith the raw odor of the river, fanned her feverish face. All thesesights and sounds beat against her as against a lifeless statue andrebounded again without making any impression on her. 

The water in its depths began to pass through ever strangertransformations: it turned black, but that blackness was interwovenwith gleams of light, flames of red, streaks of violet, and rays ofyellow, like the glowing flame of pain. There, in those silentdepths, there seemed to be a better and fuller life, for the wavesmurmured so joyously, broke against the piers and stone bulwarksand, as though with frenzied laughter, united again, blended, tumbled over one another and flowed on. Janina seemed almost to heartheir care free laughter, their calling to one another and theirvoice of mighty joy. 

"What are you doing here?" suddenly said a voice behind her. 

Janina trembled and turned around slowly. Wolska was standing beforeher and curiously and uneasily watching her. 

"Oh, nothing, I was just gazing about. "

"Come with me, the air here isn't healthy, " said Wolska, takingJanina by the arm, for she read in her dimmed eyes a suicidalintent. 

Janina allowed herself to be led away and only after they had gonesome distance, she asked quietly, "So you have not left withCabinski?"

"I couldn't. You see, my Johnnie's health is again worse. The doctorhas forbidden me to move him from bed and I believe that it wouldkill him, " whispered Wolska sadly. "I had to stay, for, of course, Ican't send him to the hospital. If it comes to the worst, we shalldie together, but I will not forsake him. The doctor still gives mesome hope that he will recover. "

Janina gazed with a strange feeling at the face of Wolska which, though worn and faded, beamed with a deep motherly love. She lookedlike a beggar woman in her dark, stained cloak and gray dress, frayed at the bottom; she wore a straw hat and black mended glovesand carried a parasol which was rusty from continual use. Butthrough all this poverty there shone, as bright as the sun, her lovefor her child. She saw and heeded nothing else, for all that did notconcern her child had no meaning for her. 

Janina walked alongside of her, gazing with admiration at thiswoman. She knew her story. Wolska was the daughter of a rich andintelligent family. She fell in love with an actor, or else with thetheater itself, and went on the stage and, although later her loverabandoned her and she suffered poverty and humiliation, she couldnot tear herself away from the theater and now, she centered all herlove and all her hopes upon her child that had been seriously illsince the spring. 

"Where does she get all her strength?" thought Janina and then, turning to Wolska, she asked: "What are you doing now?"

Wolska shuddered, a faint blush flitted over her worn face and herlips quivered with a painful expression as she answered: "Ising . . . What else could I do? I must live and must earn enough topay Johnnie's doctor bills. I must. Although it fills me with shameto do it, I must. Alas, such is my fate, such is my fate!" shemoaned complainingly. 

"But I don't know what you mean, " said Janina, who could notunderstand why Wolska should feel ashamed to earn a living bysinging. 

"Because, you see, Miss Janina, I don't want anybody to know aboutit. . . . You will keep it to yourself, won't you?" she begged withtears in her eyes. 

"Certainly I give you my word. Moreover, whom would I tell? . . . Iam all alone in the world. "

"I sing in a restaurant on Podwal St. , " said Wolska in a low andhurried voice. 

"In a restaurant!" whispered Janina, standing stock-still inamazement. 

"What else could I do? Tell me, what else could I do? I need moneyfor food and rent. How else could I earn it, when I don't even knowhow to sew? At home I knew how to play on the piano a bit and couldspeak a little French, but of course, that would not bring me apenny now. I saw an advertisement in the Courier for a singer, so Iwent there and got the position. They pay me a ruble a day togetherwith meals and . . . " but tears choked her voice and she graspedJanina's hand and pressed it feverishly. Janina returned thehand-clasp with a similar one and they walked on in silence. 

"Come along with me, won't you? It will make me feel a little moreat ease, " said Wolska. 

Janina willingly agreed. 

They entered the restaurant "Under the Bridge" on Podwal St. It wasa long and narrow garden with a few miserable trees. At the veryentrance there was a well. A whitewashed fence on the left side ofthe garden divided it from the neighboring property which must havebeen a lumberyard, for piles of beams and boards could be seenlooming above the fence. A few kerosene lanterns illuminated theplace. A number of little white tables with varnished tops andaround them three times that number of rough-hewn chairs constitutedthe entire furnishings of that summer restaurant. A small office onthe ground floor and the top of the neighboring house enclosed theright side of the garden, while at the back there arose a high, rough brick wall with small, dirty, and barred windows; it was therear of the former Kochanowski Palace, standing on the corner ofMiodowa and Kapitulna Streets. 

Near the fence, a small stage shaded by a canvas roof with its twoopen sides facing toward the audience, formed a sort of niche, thewalls of which were covered with a cheap, blue paper dotted withsilver stars. The smoking kerosene footlights on one side of thestage cast a drab light upon a musician with a disheveled gray beardand grease-stained coat, who was pounding away at the keyboard of awretched piano with an automatic motion of his arms and head. 

The garden was filled with a public of working-class people andthose from the poorer section of the city. 

Janina and Wolska pushed their way through the crowd to that littleoffice building in which there was a dressing-room for theperformers, divided into a men's and women's compartment by a redcretonne curtain. 

"I am already waiting!" came a hoarse, drunken voice from behind thecurtain. 

"You can begin your part, I will come right away!" answered Wolska, dressing herself in feverish haste in a grotesque, red costume. 

In a few minutes she was all ready for her appearance. Janinafollowed her out and took a seat facing the stage. Wolska, allflushed with hurrying and still closing the last buttons and hooksof her costume, appeared on the stage, greeting the public with along bow. The musician struck the yellow keys and at the same momentthere arose the tones of a song:

Once upon a stump among the hills, Between the oaks there sat twoturtle-doves, And I know not for what sport of love's They kissedeach other with their bills. 

The strains of the old, sentimental song from The Cracovians and theMountaineers floated on, interrupted only by frequent bursts ofapplause, the banging of beer glasses against the tables, theclatter of plates, the slamming of doors and the reports or riflesin the shooting galleries. The lanterns diffused a hazy and muddylight; girls in white aprons and with their hands full of beerglasses, passed in and out among the tables, flirted with thedrinking men and flung cynical remarks and answers at those whoaccosted them. Ribald laughter and coarse jokes flew around likefire-works and were immediately answered by broad, thoughtlessmerriment. 

The public expressed its satisfaction with the singing by shouting, beating time with their canes, and banging their beer glasses. Atmoments the wind would entirely drown out the singing, or bend thefew wretched trees with a rustling sound and scatter the leaves overthe stage and the heads of the public. 

Wolska continued to sing. Her red vaudeville costume, with low-cutfront, gleamed like a gaudy spot against the blue background of thestage and excellently accentuated her thin, thickly painted face, her sunken and pale eyes, and her sharp features which looked likethe skeleton-like face of a starving man. She swayed from side toside with a heavy motion to the measure of the song:

"Such ardent love took hold of me, I embraced Stach most tenderly. "

Her voice floated through the garden with a hollow, rasping soundand added to the din made by that noisy and drunken crowd. Brutallaughs broke out in sharp, penetrating scales, and those bravosemitted by the drunken threats of a Sunday public and interrupted byhiccoughs, beat against the stage with a hoarse and hollow roartogether with the biting jibes that were not spared the singer. Butshe heard nothing and sang on, indifferent and cold to all thatsurrounded her. She flung forth tones, words, and mimicry with theautomatism of a hypnotized woman, only at moments, her eyes wouldseek Janina's as though they were begging for pity. 

Janina grew pale and red by turns, unable to endure any longer thatalcohol-saturated atmosphere and that drunken din which filled herwith aversion and disgust. 

"I would rather die!" she thought. Oh, no, she would never be ableto amuse such a public. She would spit in its eyes and scorn herselfand then . . . If there were no other way out . . . Drown herself inthe Wisla!

Wolska finished her song and her partner, dressed in a Cracoviancostume, went about among the drinking crowd with his notes in hishand, collecting money. Remarks that froze one with their cynicismand brutal frankness, were hurled into his face, but he only smiledwith the dull smile of a habitual drunkard, nervously twitched hislips and humbly bowed his thanks for those ten-copeck pieces thatwere thrown on his notes. 

Wolska, with closed eyes, stood beside the piano, nervously tuggedat the golden lace of her waist and, groaning with painful anxiety, counted in her mind the number of copecks which her partner placedtogether with the notes beside her. The pianist again struck thekeys and Wolska and her partner began to sing together some comiccouplets, interwoven with a kind of "Krakowiak" which they danced ina half dreamy manner. 

Janina could hardly wait for the end of the performance and, withoutsaying anything about the impression that that drinking den had madeon her, she took leave of Wolska and fairly ran away from thatgarden, that public, and that degradation. 

During the entire day following, she did not leave her home. She atenothing and hardly thought at all, but lay in bed and gazed blanklyat the ceiling, following with her eyes, the last fly that creptdrowsily and half dead over it. 

In the evening, Sowinska came in, sat down on a trunk and, withoutany introduction, said harshly: "The room is already rented toanother tenant, so to-morrow you can clear out of here. And sinceyou owe us fifteen rubles, I will keep all your duds and give themback to you only when you pay me the money. "

"Very well, " answered Janina and she looked at Sowinskaindifferently, as though nothing out of the ordinary were at stake. "Very well, I shall go!" she added in a quieter tone and arose fromthe bed. 

"You will doubtlessly manage to help yourself in some way, won'tyou? You will yet come to see me in a carriage, eh?" said Sowinskaand an ugly, hostile light gleamed in her owlish eyes. 

"Very well, " repeated Janina in the same mechanical way and began topace up and down the room. 

Sowinska, growing tired of waiting for some kind of reply, left theroom. 

"So all is ended!" whispered Janina in a hollow voice and thethought of death became a conscious reality in her mind and shonealluringly. 

"What is death? A forgetting, a forgetting!" she answered herselfaloud, standing still and sinking her eyes in those murky deeps thatopened up before her soul. 

"Yes, a forgetting, a forgetting!" she repeated slowly and for along time sat motionless, gazing at the flame of the lamp. 

The night dragged on slowly, the house became quiet, the lights weregradually extinguished in the long rows of windows and an everdeeper silence spread itself about, until everything became steepedin this drowsy silence. 

The gray light of dawn was already beginning to streak the horizonand to illumine the faint outlines of the housetops when Janinaawoke from her torpor and gazed about the room. She felt fullydetermined, so she sprang up from her chair and, driven on by somethought that lit up her eyes with a strange fire, walked quietly tothe door and opened it. But the noisy click of the latch which sheclosed after her penetrated her with such a strange, sharp fear thatshe reeled back against the frame of the door and breathed heavilyfor a few moments. Finally, she quietly pulled off her shoes andboldly, but with the utmost caution, passed through the hall andentered a large room adjoining the kitchen which was used as adining room and a workroom in the day time and as a sleeping roomfor Mme. Anna's apprentices at night. The close and heavy air of theroom almost suffocated Janina. With outstretched hands and batedbreath, she stole toward the kitchen so slowly that those minutesseemed an eternity to her. At moments, she paused and, overcomingher trembling that awful trembling listened to the loud breathingand snoring of those sleeping there and then went on again, settingher teeth with a desperate strength. Large drops of perspirationrolled down her forehead from exertion and fear and her heart beatso slowly and painfully that she almost felt the pulsation of it inher throat. The kitchen door was open and Janina passed through itlike a shadow, but she stumbled against the bed of the servant-girl, which stood very near the door. She grew numb with fear and for along time stood motionless and breathless, almost in a state ofsuspended animation, gazing with terrified eyes at the bed whose dimoutlines she could scarcely make out in the darkness. But finally, rallying all her strength and courage, she walked boldly to theshelf upon which stood various kitchen utensils and supplies andfelt one after another with the greatest caution, until finally, herhand rested upon a flat oblong bottle containing essence of vinegar. She had seen it here a few hours ago and now, having found it, shesnatched it up so violently from among the other articles that a tincover fell with a crash upon the floor. Janina unconsciously benther head in terror, for the clash of the falling cover resoundedwith such a tremendous echo in her brain that it seemed as thoughthe whole world were crashing down on her. 

"Who's there?" called the servant, awakened by the noise. "Who'sthere?" she repeated in a louder voice. 

"It is I . . . I came for a drink of water, " answered Janina with achoking voice, after a long while, nervously pressing the bottle toher breast. The servant indistinctly mumbled something and did notspeak again. 

Janina ran to her room, as though pursued by the furies of madness, no longer caring whether anyone heard her or might awaken and, having reached it, locked the door and only then collapsed, halfdead from, exhaustion and trembled so violently that she thought shewould fall to pieces. The tears, which she did not even feel, beganto stream down her face. They gave her so great a relief that shefell asleep. In the morning Sowinska again reminded her that it wastime to move and, brutally opening the door before her, told her toget out. Janina dressed hastily and, without answering a word, leftthe house. 

She walked along the streets, feeling nothing but her homelessnessand that dizziness in her head which was engulfing all her thoughts. She passed through Nowy Swiat and the Ujazdowskie Allees and did notstop until she reached the lake in Lazienki Park. 

The trees stood dying and their yellow leaves spread a golden carpetover the paths. The tranquillity of an autumn day hung in the airand only now and then a flock of sparrows flew by with a noisytwitter, or the swans upon the lake cried out mournfully and beatwith their wings the muddy-green water that looked like worn velvet. All around could be seen the destruction wrought by the hand ofgolden autumn. Wherever it touched the trees, there the leaveswithered and fell to the ground, the grass dried up and the lastautumn asters bent their lifeless heads and dripped with dew, asthough weeping tears after death. 

"Death!" whispered Janina, pressing in her hands the bottle that shehad secured on the previous night and she sat down, perhaps on thesame bench on which she had sat that spring. It seemed to her thatshe was slowly drowsing away and that her thoughts were fading, forher consciousness had begun to disintegrate and she was alreadyceasing to feel and to know. Everything was falling away from herand dying, like the nature about her that also seemed to be burningout and drawing its last breath. 

A rapturous feeling, full of peace and calm, filled Janina's heart, for the entire past was vanishing from her memory; all her miseries, all her disappointments, and all her struggles faded away, paled anddispersed, as though absorbed by that pale autumn sun that hung overthe park. It seemed to her that she had never passed through them, never felt anything, never suffered anything. It seemed to her thatshe was curling up within herself, growing smaller and shrinking, like that withered leaf that hung upon the barbed wire of the fence, all ready to drop and be hurled down into the abyss of death by thatlight breath of wind. Then again it seemed to her that she wasripping to pieces, like that spider web that tangled itself aboutthe grass and floated in glistening filaments through the air; thatshe was unwinding into such gossamer strands, into ever finer andfiner filaments, until she had vanished away into infinity and lostall consciousness of herself. This feeling moved her strongly and astrange tenderness and pity for herself filled her heart withsorrow. 

"Poor girl! How unhappy she is!" whispered Janina, as though she wasspeaking of some other person. 

Janina's soul was so rapidly disintegrating in its agony that she nolonger had a full and clear conception of what the miseries werethat had vanquished her, what misfortunes had broken her, nor didshe know why she was weeping or who she was. 

"Death!" she repeated mechanically and that word found a deep andunconscious echo in her brain and nerves and pressed only a fewtears from her eyes. 

She stopped, without knowing why, before the marble figure of thedancing Faun. The rains had darkened his stony body and rusted thelocks of his hair that curled like hyacinths, and his face, furrowedby streams of water, seemed to have grown longer since the spring, but in his eyes there gleamed and burned that same mockery and hiscrooked legs continued their mad dance. "Lo! lo! lo!" he seemed tosing, shaking his flute, laughing and jeering at everything, andraising boldly to the sun his head which was crowned as though witha bacchantic wreath by the withered leaves that had fallen on it. 

Janina gazed at him, but being unable to remember or understandanything, she passed on. 

On Nowy Swiat, in one of the chambres garnies, she asked for a room, ink, letter-paper, and envelopes. When everything had been supplied, Janina locked herself up in the room and wrote two letters: onebrief, dry, and painfully ironical letter to her father and anotherlonger and entirely calm one to Glogowski. She notified them both ofher suicide. She addressed the letters with the greatest accuracyand laid them in a conspicuous place. 

Afterwards Janina calmly took from her pocket the bottle with thepoison, uncorked it, held the liquid up to the light and then, without thinking or hesitating any longer drank it to the verydregs. 

Suddenly, she stretched out her arms, a gleam of terror shot acrossher face, her eyes closed, as though blinded by some measurelessvoid that opened before, and she fell prone upon the floor, indreadful convulsions of pain. 

A few days later, Kotlicki, having returned from Lublin where he hadinstalled Topolski's company, was sitting in a coffee-house, lookingover the newspapers, and by some strange chance his eye fell uponthe following item among the local accidents of the day:

"THE SUICIDE OF AN ACTRESS"

"On Tuesday, in the chambres garnies on Nowy Swiat, the servantswere aroused by moans issuing from one of the rooms which an hourago had been engaged by an unknown woman. They broke open the doorand a dreadful sight met their eyes. Upon the floor lay writhing inpain a young and beautiful woman. Two letters left behind by herrevealed that she was a certain Janina Orlowska, a former chorusgirl who appeared last season in the N. N. Theater under Cabinski'smanagement. 

"A physician was called and the unconscious woman was taken to theHospital of the Infant Jesus. Her condition is serious but it stillholds forth some hope. Miss Orlowska poisoned herself with essenceof vinegar, as is attested by the bottle that was found in her room. The cause of her desperate act is unknown, but an investigation isbeing made. . . . "

Kotlicki read this over several times, knitted his brows, tugged athis mustache, read it again and, finally, crumpled up The Courierand threw it in anger upon the floor. 

"A comedienne! A comedienne!" he whispered scornfully, biting hislips.