E-text prepared by Andrew Leader of polishwriting.net
THE COMEDIENNE
by
WLADYSLAW S. REYMONT
Translated from the Polish by Edmund Obecny
Frontispiece by Frederick Dorr Steele
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker press 1920
Copyright, 1920
by
G. P. Putnam's Sons
PUBLISHERS' NOTE
The provincial actors of Poland are sometimes colloquially called
"comedians," as distinguished from their more pretentious brethren
of the metropolitan stage in Warsaw. The word, however, does not
characterize a player of comedy parts. Indeed, the provincials,
usually performing in open air theatres, play every conceivable
role, and as in the case of Janina, the heroine of this story, the
life 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 Prize
for Literature. He is the author of numerous novels dealing with
various phases of everyday life in Poland, many of them translated
into French, German, and Swedish. The Comedienne is the first of his
works to appear in English.
Reymont himself was a peasant, rising from the bottom until to-day
the light of his recognized genius shines in the very forefront of
the Slavic intellectuals.
It is interesting to note that for several years the author was
himself a "Comedian," traveling about what was then Russian Poland
with a company of provincial players.
The Comedienne
CHAPTER I
Bukowiec, a station on the Dombrowa railroad, lies in a beautiful
spot. A winding line was cut among the beech and pine covered hills,
and at the most level point, between a mighty hill towering above
the woods with its bald and rocky summit, and a long narrow valley,
glistening with pools and marshes, was placed the station. This
two-story building of rough brick containing the quarters of the
station-master and his assistant, a small wooden house at the side
for the telegrapher and the minor employees, another similar one
near the last switches for the watchman, three switch-houses at
various points, and a freight-house were the only signs of human
habitation.
Surrounding the station on all sides were the murmuring woods, while
above, a strip of blue sky, slashed with gray clouds, extended like
a wide-spreading roof.
The sun was veering toward the south and glowing ever brighter and
warmer; the reddish slopes of the rocky hill, with its ragged summit
gashed by spring freshets, were bathed in a flood of golden
sunlight.
The calm of a spring afternoon diffused itself over all. The trees
stood motionless without a murmur in their boughs. The sharp emerald
leaves of the beeches drooped drowsily, as though lulled to sleep by
the light, the warmth, and the silence. The twitter of birds sounded
at rare intervals from the thickets, and only the cry of the
water-fowls on the marshes and the somnolent hum of insects filled
the air. Above the blue line of rails stretching in an endless chain
of curves and zigzags, the warm air glowed with shifting hues of
violet light.
Out of the office of the station-master came a short, squarely-built
man with light, almost flaxen hair. He was dressed, or rather
squeezed into a stylish surtout and held his hat in his hand while a
workman helped him on with his overcoat.
The station-master stood before him, stroking his grayish beard with
an automatic gesture and smiling in a friendly manner. He also was
stocky, 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 straight
nose, full lips, a certain contraction of the brows, and the sharp
direct glance of his eyes, that seemed like a dagger-stroke--all
these 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 celebrate
the 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 everything
will turn out all right. Ill tell Jenka all about it immediately.
You will come to us to-morrow for dinner, propose to her, be
accepted by her, in a month you will be married and we shall be
neighbors . . . hey! I like you immensely, Mr. Andrew! I always
dreamed of having such a son. Unfortunately I haven't any, but at
least I'll have a son-in-law."
They kissed each other heartily; the younger jumped into a light
mountain rig waiting near the platform and drove away at a swift
pace along a narrow road leading through the wood. He glanced back,
tipped his hat, sent a deeper bow to the windows of the second
story, and disappeared in the shadow of the trees. After riding a
little way, he sprang from the carriage, ordered the driver to go
on, 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 official
correspondence. He was highly satisfied that Grzesikiewicz had asked
him for his daughter's hand and he had promised her to him in the
certainty that she would agree.
Grzesikiewicz, although not handsome, was sensible and very rich.
The woods among which stood the station and a few neighboring
farmhouses were the property of his father. The elder Grzesikiewicz
was primarily a peasant, who had transformed himself from an
innkeeper into a trader and had made a fabulous fortune by the sale
of timber and cattle-fodder.
Many people in the neighborhood still remembered that the old man
used to be called Grzesik in his youth. They often ridiculed him for
it, but no one upbraided him for changing his name, for he did not
pose as an aristocrat, nor did he assume an overbearing air toward
others because of his wealth.
He was a peasant, and in spite of all changes remained a peasant to
the very core. His son received a thorough education and now helped
his father. Two years ago he had made the acquaintance of the
station-master's daughter after her return from the academy at
Kielce and had fallen violently in love with her. His father offered
no opposition, but told him plainly to go ahead and marry if he
wanted.
Andrew met the girl quite often, became ever more deeply enamored of
her, but never dared to speak to her of his love. She liked him, but
at the same time her attitude was so frank and straightforward that
his intended words of endearment and confessions of love always
froze upon his lips before he had half uttered them. He felt that
she belonged to a higher breed of women, inaccessible to such a
"churl" as he often frankly called himself; but precisely because of
his 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 all
would be well. Grzesikiewicz was therefore thinking that Janina
would not refuse him, that she must have already spoken of the
matter 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 he
began to run swiftly through the woods, breaking branches off the
trees, kicking the rotted stumps that were in his way, knocking off
the heads of spring mushrooms, whistling and smiling. And he
thought, too, how glad his mother would be to hear the news.
She was an old peasant woman, who with the exception of her dress
had not changed in the least on account of her wealth. She thought
of Janina as of a princess. Her one dream was to have for a
daughter-in-law a real lady, an aristocrat whose beauty and high
birth would dazzle her, for her husband and his money and the
respect which the entire neighborhood showed him did not suffice
her. She was always conscious of being a peasant and received all
honors with a true peasant-like distrust.
"Andy!" she often said to her son. "Andy, I wish you would marry
Miss Orlowska. That's what I call a real lady! When she looks at
you, she makes you shudder with awe and wish to fall at her feet and
beg some boon of her. . . . She must be very good for whenever she
meets folks in the woods she greets them in God's name, chats with
them, and pets the children . . . another would be incapable of
that! Gentle birth will always out. I sent her a basket of mushrooms
and when she met me she kissed my hand for it. And she is not
lacking 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 her
wishes.
"We will have a princess in our house and seat her in state in the
parlor! Don't fear, Andy, I will not let her soil her hands with
anything. I will wait upon her, serve her, hand her everything she
needs; all she has to do is to read French books and play on the
piano, 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 seethed
a primitive unbridled energy and the desire for a wife--a woman to
rule him. This young Hercules, who, when he felt like it, could
fling unaided into the wagon two-hundred pound sacks of wheat, and
who often had to toil like a common laborer to quell with weariness
the riotous tides that often rose in his healthy blood, unexhausted
through dozens of generations dreamed of Janina and was vanquished
by her beauty and sweetness.
He now rushed along through the woods like a whirlwind and then flew
across the fields, all green with the first vigorous shoots of the
spring wheat, to tell his mother of the happiness awaiting him. He
knew that he would find her in her favorite room whose walls were
adorned with three rows of holy pictures--in gilt frames for that
was the only luxury that she allowed herself.
The station-master, in the meanwhile, finished writing his official
report, signed it, made an entry in his journal, placed it in an
envelope, addressed it to "the Expeditor of the Station of
Bukowiec," 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 solemnest
mien in the world laid it upon a table on the other side of the
window. The station-master arose, stretched himself, took off his
red cap, and walked over to that table; then he put on an ordinary
cap with a red border and with the greatest gravity opened the
letter that he had written a moment ago. He read it, wrote on the
other side a few lines in reply, again signing his name, and then
addressed it to the "Local Station-Master" and had Anthony deliver
it to himself.
All the officials of the railway knew his mania and made merry at
his expense. There was no expediter in Bukowiec, hence he performed
both functions, that of station-master and dispatcher but at two
different tables.
As the station-master he was his own superior, so he often had
moments of truly insane joy when, noticing some error in his
accounts, or some omission in his duty as a dispatcher, he would
indite a complaint against himself.
Everybody made fun of him, but he paid no attention and persisted in
following his own way, saying in justification: "Order and system
are the foundations of everything; if they are lacking, all else
fails!"
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 by
way of the anteroom, but through the kitchen, for he had to know all
that was going on. He peeped into the stove, gave the fire a jab
with the poker, scolded the servant-girl because of some water
spilled 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, a
sort of housekeeper and duenna in one person, a pretty blonde with
expressive features.
"What are you preparing for dinner?"
"The Director's favorite dish; chicken fricassee, sorrel soup, and
cutlets."
"Extravagance! By God, what extravagance! Soup and one kind of meat
is enough even for a king! You will ruin me!"
"But Mr. Director . . . I ordered this meal prepared especially for
you, 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 men
do."
"Aha! You economize so that you can later buy yourselves more
fineries . . . 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 very
regular; she had black eyes, a straight forehead, a trifle too
broad, dark eyebrows strongly accented, a Roman nose, and full
glowing lips. Her eyes had a deep expression indicating an
introspective nature; her lips were tightly drawn together in what
seemed to be a semblance of dignity or hidden temper. Two deep lines
clouded her clear forehead. Gorgeous, wavy blonde hair, with a
reddish tinge, crowned her small round head. Her amber-gold
complexion had the mellowness of a ripe peach. There was something
strange about her voice: an alto that at times dropped into a deep
baritone of almost masculine accents.
She bowed her head to her father and seated herself on the opposite
side of the table.
"Grzesikiewicz was here to see me to-day," said Orlowski slowly
serving 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 told
him all would be well," he said, turning to Janina. "He will be here
to-morrow for dinner and you can talk it over between yourselves."
"What's the use, father! Since you have told him that all would be
well, you can receive him yourself to-morrow and tell him from me
that everything is far from well. . . . I do not wish to speak with
him. To-morrow I will go to Kielce!"
"Bosh! If you were not a crazy fool, you would understand what an
excellent husband he would make for you! Even though Grzesikiewicz
is a peasant he's worth more to you than a prince, for he wants
you . . . and he wants you because he's a fool. He could afford to
take his pick of the best. . . . You ought to be grateful to him for
choosing you. He will propose to you to-morrow and in a month from
now 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 a
roof over your head, food and dress, and someone to look after
you. . . . I don't intend to ruin myself completely for your
sake . . . and when I am gone, what then?"
"I have my dower; I will get along without the aid of Grzesikiewicz
or anyone like him. Aha, so your object in wanting to marry me is
simply to provide for my support!" She regarded him defiantly.
"And what of it? For what else do women marry?" "They marry for
love 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 but
this sauce, you can eat the chicken just as well without it; sauce
is nothing but an invention, a freak and a modern fad!"
"No self-respecting woman sells herself to the first man that comes
along merely because he is capable of supporting her!"
"You're a fool. They all do it, they all sell themselves. Love is
childish prattle and nonsense. Don't irritate me."
"It is not a question of irritating you, father, or whether love is
nonsense or not; it is a question of my future which you dispose of
as though it belonged to you. Already at the time that Zielenkiewicz
proposed to me. I told you that I do not intend to marry at all."
"Zielenkiewicz is merely Zielenkiewicz, but Grzesikiewicz is a very
lord, and what I call a man! He is kind-hearted, wise for did he not
graduate from the academy at Dublany and as strong as a bull. A
fellow who can master the wildest horse and who, when he struck a
peasant in the face the other day, knocked out six of his teeth with
one blow such a fellow is not good enough for you! I swear he is
ideal, the highest of all ideals!"
"Yes, your ideal is an incomparable one; he'd make a good
prize-fighter."
"You are as crazy as your mother was. Wait! Andrew will muzzle you
and show you how such women are ruled. He will not spare the whip."
Janina violently shoved aside her chair, threw her spoon on the
table, and left the room, slamming the door after her.
"Don't sit there gaping, but order the cutlets served for me," he
shouted at Mrs. Krenska, who gazed after Janina with a sympathetic
look.
She handed him the dish with a servile mien, whispering to him with
a solicitous tone in her voice, "Mr. Director, you must not irritate
yourself so, it is not good for your health."
"Such is my fate!" he drawled. "I can't even eat in peace, without
having to listen to these everlasting squabbles."
He then began to air at length his grievances and complaints over
Janina's stubbornness, her wilful character, and his continual
troubles with her.
Mrs. Krenska obsequiously pretended to agree with him, and
occasionally emphasized some detail. She complained discreetly that
she also had to bear a great deal because of Janina, sighed deeply,
and wheedled him at every opportunity. She brought in the coffee and
arrack and poured it for him herself. While doing so she fawned upon
him, touched his hands and arms, as though accidentally, lowered her
eyes, and kept up a continual flirtation, trying to awaken some
spark in him.
Orlowski's anger slowly abated, and having drunk his coffee, he
ejaculated, "Thank you! I swear to God that you alone understand
me. . . . You are a kind woman, Mrs. Krenska."
"Mr. Director, if I could only show you what I feel, what--" she
faltered, 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 was
alone, took up some sewing and sat near the window facing the
station platform. Occasionally she would look up from her work and
gaze at the woods, or at the long line of rails, but everything
seemed deserted and silent. Finally, unable to sit still any longer,
she arose and began to pace around the table with a soft, feline
step, smiling and repeating to herself: "I will get him, I will get
him! At last I will find a little rest in my life, my wanderings
will come to an end!"
Scenes from the past floated before her memory: whole years of
wandering with a company of provincial actors. Krenska had abandoned
the theater because she managed to catch a young fellow who married
her. She lived with him for two whole years . . . two years which
she recalled with bitterness. Her husband was insanely jealous and
frequently beat her.
At last he died and she was free, but she had no longer any desire
to return to the theater. She shuddered at the thought of resuming
that eternal pilgrimage from town to town and the everlasting
poverty of a provincial actor's life. Moreover, she realized that
she was growing old and homely. So she sold all her household
furnishings, received a pension from the management to which her
husband had belonged, and for half a year played the role of a
widow. She was very eager to marry a second time and sedulously
spread her nets, but all in vain, for her own temperament stood in
the way. With money in her pocket, there awakened in her again the
former actress with her careless and sporty disposition and craving
for pleasure and enjoyment. Being still seductive, she was
surrounded by a swarm of various admirers with whom she squandered
all she had, together with the reputation which she had succeeded in
establishing for herself with the aid of her husband.
Krenska had no abilities of any kind, but she possessed a great deal
of cleverness, so, instead of resigning herself to despair when the
last of her admirers had forsaken her, she inserted an advertisement
in the Kielce Gazette reading: "Middle-aged widow of a government
official desires position as a housekeeper to widower, or as a
social secretary."
She did not have to wait long for results. Her advertisement was
answered in person by Orlowski, who was badly in need of a
house-keeper, for Janina was still attending school and he could not
himself manage the servants. Krenska seemed so quiet, humble, and
full of grief over the loss of her husband that he did not ask her
any questions, but engaged her immediately.
Orlowski was a widower who possessed a good salary, a few thousand
dollars in cash, and an only daughter--an absent daughter whom he
detested. Krenska at first tried to turn the heads of the station
officials, but very soon sized up the situation and immediately
began playing a new role whereby she perseveringly strove to attain
the last act: Matrimony.
Orlowski became used to her. She knew how to make herself
indispensable and always to show that indispensability so skillfully
that it did not offend.
Moreover, the gray autumn days and the long wintry evenings brought
her nearer to her goal, for Orlowski, who was fifty-eight years old
and had rheumatism, was always a maniac, but during his rheumatic
attacks he would become a raving maniac. She alone knew how to
mollify and manage him with her inherent cleverness, sharpened by
many years of theatrical experience. There was only one obstacle in
her way--Janina. Krenska realized that as long as Janina was at home
she could accomplish nothing. She decided to wait and waited
patiently.
Orlowski loved his daughter with hatred, that is, he loved her
because he hated her. He hated her because she was the daughter of
his wife, whose memory he violently cursed--his wife, who after two
years of conjugal life, left him, because she could no longer endure
his tyranny and eccentricities. He brought legal action against her
and tried to force her to return to him, but their separation became
a permanent one. He raved with anger, but his relentlessness,
unexampled stubbornness, and insane pride prevented him from begging
his wife to return, which she might have done, for she was a good
woman. Her only failing was an illness that baffled all the
provincial doctors. She had the soul of a mimosa, so sensitive that
every tear, pain, or grief would cast her into despair. Moreover she
had an abnormal fear of thunderstorms, showers, frogs, dark rooms,
unlucky numbers, and all loud sounds; so this husband of hers was
killing her with his brutality.
Within a few years after their separation she died of nervous
prostration, leaving Janina, who was then ten years old. Orlowski
immediately took her away from his wife's family by force.
An additional reason for his hatred of Janina was because she
happened to be a girl. With his wild and violent disposition he
wanted a son on whom he could exercise not only his fists, but also
his everyday humor. He had dreamed of a son and fancied that he
would be a big and half-wild fellow, energetic and as strong as an
oak.
He immediately sent Janina to a boarding-school, seeing her only
once a year during her vacation. She spent the Christmas and Easter
holidays at her aunt's home.
For these vacations, which were now in their third year, he would
wait impatiently, for he was weary of being alone at his remote
station. And as soon as Janina arrived hostilities between them
would begin.
Janina grew up rapidly, and her mental and physical development were
of the best, but having been conceived, born, and reared in an
environment of continual hatred and quarrels and nursed with the
tears and complaints of her mother at her father's brutality, she
naturally disliked him and feared his scorn. This developed in her
secretiveness and resentment. She rebelled against his despotism and
niggardliness.
Janina inherited a few thousand rubles from her mother, and her
father told her plainly that the interest on that sum would have to
suffice her, for he did not intend to give her a single kopeck. She
attended a first-class boarding-school, but after paying her fees
and, later, her expenses at the academy she had so little left for
her immediate needs that she had to continually think of how to make
ends meet and to feel ashamed because of her worn shoes and dresses.
In a few years her classmates began to fear her, even the teachers
often gave way to her, for she had her father's violent character
and brooked no restraint. She never wept nor complained, but she was
ever ready to avenge her wrongs with her fists, irrespective of what
might happen to her. At the same time she was always one of the
brightest scholars in her class.
All sincerely disliked her, but had to grant her supremacy. She
herself became conscious of her superiority over the throng of her
classmates, who treated her with aloofness, laughed at her shabby
dresses and shoes, and barred her from all intimacy with them. Later
she paid them back with unrelenting vengeance.
There were times when Orlowski was proud of Janina and warmly
defended her before his friends, for the whole neighborhood was
shocked at her tomboyish adventures. She would tramp through the
woods late at night and in all kinds of weather, alone, like a young
wild-boar separated from the herd. She was not a bit ashamed of
climbing up trees for birds' nests, nor of riding astride in
horse-races with the peasant lads on the pasturage. To avoid her
father she would stay away from home for whole days at a time,
dreaming of her return to school, while at school she would again
dream of returning to the solitude of her home.
Such was Janina up to about the eighteenth year of her life when she
graduated from high school and returned home for good. In her
outward life she quieted down, but inwardly she became even more
restless than before.
With her friend, Helen Walder, ideally beautiful and day dreaming of
the emancipation of woman, she had parted. Helen went to Paris to
study science. Janina had no desire to go, for she didn't feel the
need of any knowledge of an abstract nature. She yearned for
something that would exert a more potent influence upon her
temperament something that would absorb her whole being for all
time.
Men, Janina avoided almost entirely, for they angered her with their
impudence; the women bored her with their everlasting repetition of
gossip, troubles, and intrigues. People in general seemed to keep
aloof 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 she
was waging a battle with her desires, to which she knew not how to
give a definite form. She asked herself why she lived. She buried
herself in books, but found no comfort there. She felt that she must
find something that would absorb and thrill her entire being, felt
that she would find it sooner or later, but in the meanwhile the
agony of waiting almost drove her mad.
Zielenkiewicz, the owner of a heavily mortgaged village, proposed to
her. Janina laughed outright at him and told him to his face that
she did not intend to pay his debts with her dower.
She had reached her twenty-first year and was beginning to lose
patience, when a commonplace occurrence decided her whole future.
In a nearby town an amateur theatrical was being arranged. Three
one-act plays were selected and the parts had already been assigned,
when there came a hitch: no one wanted to accept the role of Pawlowa
in Blizinski's The March Bachelor.
The dramatic coach insisted on presenting this play, for he wanted
to twit a certain neighbor with it, but none of the ladies would
play the parts of Pawlowa or Eulalia.
Someone proposed that they request Janina Orlowska to take the part
of Pawlowa, for they knew that she dared anything. She accepted it
rather indifferently, and Mrs. Krenska, in whom memories of her
histrionic past had suddenly awakened, induced Orlowski to announce
that an amateur had also been found for the part of Eulalia.
The rehearsals lasted for about three months, for the cast of the
players was changed several times--the usual fuss and confusion of
provincial theaters where none of the ladies want to assume the part
of an old, quarrelsome, or shady character, or that of a maid, but
all 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 good
reason in the play for approaching her. She began to give her
lessons in the art of acting, untiringly.
So absorbed did she become with her part, so deeply did she enter
into the character, and so well did it fit her that she gave a very
creditable presentation. She was every inch a peasant woman, a
genuine Pawlowa, and received a clamorous ovation at the end of the
play. This momentary triumph and the consciousness of her power
filled her with a wild and unrestrained joy. It was with a feeling
of intense regret that she saw the final curtain fall.
Krenska also created quite a furore. It was a role that she had
often played with great success on the real stage. During the
intermissions everyone was speaking only of her and of Janina.
"A comedienne! A born actress!" whispered the ladies, regarding
Janina with a sort of contemptuous pity.
Orlowski, whom they thanked and congratulated for having so talented
a daughter and companion, shrugged his shoulders. He was, however,
satisfied, for he went behind the scenes, petted Janina, and kissed
Krenska's hand.
"Good, good! . . . Nothing extraordinary, but at least I don't have
to 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 past
life. 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 an
actor. As she related her experiences Krenska was herself carried
away by enthusiasm and painted them in glowing colors; she no longer
remembered the miseries of that life and held up only the brightest
pictures to the gaze of the enraptured girl. She pulled out of her
trunk faded and musty copies of roles she had once impersonated,
read them to Janina and played them, stirred by memories of the
past.
All this fascinated the girl and awoke in her certain strong
desires, 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 and
the details about actors in the newspapers. Finally, whether
actuated by ennui or by an instinctive impulse, she bought a
complete set of Shakespeare's works and, forthwith, was lost! She
found that "something" for which she had sought so long; she found
her hero, her aim, her ideal--it was the theater. She devoured
Shakespeare with all the inherent intensity of her nature.
It would be difficult to epitomize the violent upheaval that now
took place in Janina's soul, the wild soaring of her imagination,
and the enlargement and expansion of her whole being. There swarmed
about her a vast throng of characters evil, noble, base, petty,
heroic, and struggling souls. There passed through her such tones
and words, such overwhelming thoughts and emotions that she felt as
though the whole universe was contained in her soul!
She became consumed with a desire for the theater and for unusual
emotions. The winters seemed too warm for her, the snowfalls too
light; the springs dragged along too slowly, the summers were too
cool, the autumns too dry; all this she visioned in her imagination
in far grander outlines. She wished to see the acme of beauty, the
acme of evil, and every act magnified to titanic proportions.
Orlowski knew a little about her "disease," but he smiled at it in
scorn.
"You comedienne!" he called her, scoffingly.
Krenska would add fuel to this fire, for she wished at any cost to
see Janina leave home. She persuaded her of her talent and warmly
praised the theatrical career.
Janina could not pluck up courage to take the decisive step. She
feared those dark and vague presentiments and an unaccountable
feeling of terror at times would seize upon her. She could not
summon the necessary determination. A storm of some kind only could
uproot her and carry her far away from home in the same way as it
uprooted the trees and scattered them over the desolate fields. She
was waiting now for some chance happening to cast her into the
world. Krenska, in the meanwhile, kept her informed of the
activities of the provincial theatrical companies. Janina made
certain preparations and savings. Her father paid her regularly the
interest on her inheritance and this enabled her in a year's time to
lay aside about two hundred rubles.
Grzesikiewicz's proposal and her father's insistance on her marriage
roused a stormy protest in her.
"No, no, no!" she repeated to herself, pacing excitedly up and down
her room. "I will not marry!"
Janina had never contemplated matrimony seriously. At times the
vision of a great, overwhelming love would gleam through her mind,
and she would dream of it for a while; but of marriage she had never
given a thought.
She even liked Grzesikiewicz, because he would never speak lightly
to her about love, nor enact those amorous comedies to which other
admirers had accustomed her. She liked him for the simplicity with
which he would relate all that he had to suffer at school, how he
was abused and humiliated as the son of a peasant and innkeeper and
how he paid them back in peasant fashion with his fists. He would
smile while relating this to her, but there was in his smile a trace
of sorrow.
She opened the door of her father's room and was about to tell him
abruptly and decisively that there was no need of Grzesikiewicz's
coming, but Orlowski was already enjoying his after-dinner nap,
seated in a big arm-chair with his feet propped against the
window-sill. The sun was shining straight into his face which was
almost entirely bronzed from sunburn.
Janina withdrew.
"No, no, no! . . . Even though I have to run away from home, I will
not marry!" she repeated to herself fiercely.
But immediately there followed this determination a feeling of
womanly helplessness.
"I will go to my uncle's house. . . . Yes! . . . and from there I
will go to the stage. No one can force me to stay here."
Thereupon, the blood would rush to her head with indignation and she
would immediately gaze with courage into the future, determined to
meet anything that might happen rather than submit.
She heard her father arise and then go to the window; she listened
to the station bells, and to the jabbering of a few Jews who were
boarding the train; she saw the red cap of her father, and the
yellow striped cap of the telegrapher conversing through his window
with some lady; she saw and heard all, but understood nothing, so
absorbed was she in thought.
Krenska entered and in her habitual way began to circle around the
table with quiet, cat-like motion before she spoke. Her face bore an
expression 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 will
demand unquestioning obedience . . . what will come of it?"
"No! I will not marry! . . . My father can retract his word; he
cannot 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 has
such a dreadful temper. . . . I can't understand how you are able to
bear 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 before
it begins. I would go to Warsaw."
"Well, and what would you do next?" asked Janina with trembling
voice.
"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 reasserted
themselves. She sat silent without answering Krenska.
Janina put on a jacket and felt hat and taking a stick wandered off
into the woods.
She climbed to the top of that rocky hill from which spread out
below her a wide view of the woods, the villages beyond them, and an
endless expanse of fields. She sat gazing about her for a while, but
the calm that reigned all around, contrasted with the feeling of
unquiet and foreboding in her own soul, as before an impending
storm, gave her no peace.
At dusk Janina returned home. She did not speak either to her father
or to Krenska but immediately after supper went to her own room and
sat reading George Sand's Consuelo until a late hour.
During the night she was perturbed with unquiet dreams from which
she started up every now and then, perspiring heavily, and awoke
fully before dawn, unable to sleep any longer. She lay upon her bed
with wide open eyes, gazing fixedly at the ceiling on which
flickered a patch of light reflected from the station lamp. A train
went roaring by and she listened for a long while to its rhythmic
rumbling and clatter that seemed like a whole choir of voices and
tones streaming in through her window.
At the farther end of the room, steeped in a twilight full of pale
gleams that flickered like severed rays from a light long since
extinguished, she seemed to see apparitions and vague outlines of
mysterious scenes, figures, and sounds. Her wearied brain peopled
the room with the phantoms of hallucination. She beheld, as it were,
a vast edifice with a long row of columns that seemed to emerge from
the dusk and take shape. In the morning she arose so worn out that
she could scarcely stand on her feet.
She heard her father issuing orders for a sumptuous dinner and saw
them making preparations. Krenska circled about her on tiptoe and
smiled at her with a subtle, ironical smile that irritated Janina.
She felt dazed with exhaustion and the storm that was brewing within
her, and beheld everything with indifference, for her mind was
continually dwelling on the impending battle with her father. She
tried to read or occupy herself with something, but was too nervous.
She ran off to the woods, but immediately came back, for she knew
not what to do there. A lethargy seemed to take hold of her and
benumb her with an ever greater fear. Try as she would, Janina could
not shake off this depressing mood.
She sat down at the piano and began mechanically to play scales, but
the somnolent monotony of the tones only added to her nervousness.
Later she played some of Chopin's Nocturnes, lingered over those
mysterious tones that seemed like strains from another world, full
of tears, pain, cries of anguish, and bleak despair; the radiance of
cold 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 for
a long time, not knowing why she wept she who since her mother's
death had not shed a single tear.
For the first time in her life which up till now had been one
continuous struggle, revolt, and protest she felt overcome by
distress. There awakened in her an irresistible longing to share her
sorrows with someone, a longing to confide to some sympathetic heart
those bewildered thoughts and feelings, that unexplainable misery
and fear. She yearned for sympathy, feeling that her distress would
be smaller, her anguish less violent, her tears not so bitter, if
she could open her heart before some sincere woman friend.
Krenska summoned her to dinner, announcing that Grzesikiewicz was
already waiting.
She wiped away the traces of tears from her eyes, arranged her hair
and went.
Grzesikiewicz kissed her hand and seated himself beside her at the
table.
Orlowski was in a holiday humor and every now and then twitted
Janina 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 wearily
on. Orlowski at times became wrapt in thought, and would then knit
his brows, angrily tug at his beard, and fling murderous glances at
his daughter.
After dinner they went to the parlor. Black coffee and cognac were
served. Orlowski quickly gulped down his coffee and left the room,
kissing Janina on the forehead and growling some unintelligible
remark as he departed.
They remained alone.
Janina kept looking out of the window. Grzesikiewicz, all flushed
and flustered and unlike himself, began to say something, taking
little swallows of coffee in between, until, finally, he drained it
off at the gulp and shoved his cup and saucer aside so vigorously
that 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 noticing
it," he remarked.
"That would be quite a feat," she answered, again bursting into
empty 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 his
moustache; he was literally shaking with emotion.
"It is so hard for me, so awfully hard!" he began, raising his eyes
to her entreatingly.
"Why?" she queried tersely and evasively.
"Well, because . . . because . . . For God's sake, I can't stand it
any longer! No, I can't endure this torment any longer, so I'll come
right out with it: I love you, Miss Janina, and beg you for your
hand," he cried aloud, at once sighing with immense relief. But
immediately he struck his forehead with his hand and, taking
Janina's hand, began anew:
"I have loved you ever so long, but feared to tell you. And now I
don't know how to express it as I would like to. . . . I love you
and beg you to be my wife. . . ."
He kissed her hand fervently and gazed at her with his blue, honest
eyes burning with blind love. His lips twitched nervously and a
pallor 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 will
not marry at all!" she answered in the same cold tone, but at the
last word her voice wavered with an accent of pity for him.
"God!" cried Grzesikiewicz, holding his hand to his head. "What does
it mean? . . . You will not marry! . . . You will not be my
wife! . . . You do not love me!"
He threw himself impulsively on his knees before her, seized her
hands, and, covering them with kisses, began, with what seemed
almost 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 you
wish . . . Say that in a year, or two, or even five, you will love
me. . . . I will wait. . . . I swear to you that I will wait! But do
not say no to me! For God's sake do not say that, for I shall go mad
with despair! How can it be? You do not love me! . . . But I love
you . . . 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 doing
to me!"
Springing up from the floor he fairly cried aloud with pain.
Mechanically he pulled off his gloves, tore them to pieces and flung
them on the floor, buttoned up his coat to the topmost button, and
struggling to control himself said: "Farewell, Miss Janina. But
always . . . everywhere . . . forever . . . I will . . ." he
whispered with great effort, bowed his head and went toward the
door.
"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 I
respect you. . . . I cannot marry you, I cannot . . . but I will
always think of you as of a noble man. Surely you will understand
that it would be a base thing for me to marry a man whom I do not
love . . . I know that you detest falsehood and hypocrisy and so do
I. Forgive me for hurting you, but I also suffer . . . I also am not
happy oh no!"
"Janina if you would only . . . if you would only . . ."
She regarded him with such a sorrowful expression that he became
silent. Then slowly he left the room.
Janina still sat there dazed, staring at the door through which he
had gone, when Orlowski entered the room.
He had met Grzesikiewicz on the stairs and in his face had read what
had happened.
Janina uttered a little cry of fear, so great a change had come over
him. His face was ashen-gray, his eyes seemed to bulge from their
sockets, his head swayed violently from side to side.
He seated himself near the table and with a quiet, smothered voice
asked, "What did you tell Grzesikiewicz?"
"What I told you yesterday; that I do not love him and will not
marry him!" she answered boldly, but she was startled at the seeming
calm 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 at
all. . . ."
"You are a fool! . . . a fool! . . . a fool!" he hissed at her
through 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 would
marry him, and you will marry him!"
"I will not! . . . no one is able to force me!" she answered
sullenly, looking with steady gaze into her father's eyes.
"I will drag you to the altar. I will compel you! . . . You
must! . . ." he cried hoarsely.
"No!"
"You will marry Grzesikiewicz, I tell you; I, your father, command
you 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 felt
that with each word her heart was hardening with greater resolve.
"I'll drive you out . . . do you hear? . . . and even though you die
of hunger, I never want to hear of you again!"
"Very well!"
"Janina! I warn you, don't drive me to extremity. I beg you marry
Grzesikiewicz, my daughter, my child! . . . Isn't it for your good?
You have no one but me in the world and I am old . . . I will
die . . . and you will remain alone without protection or
support. . . . Janina, you have never loved me! . . . If you knew
how unhappy I have been throughout my life, you would take pity on
me!"
"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 was
shattered to pieces. He tore open the collar of his shirt, so
violent was the paroxysm of fury that had seized him, and with the
broken arm of the chair in his hand, he sprang at Janina to strike
her, but the cold, almost scornful, expression of her face brought
him 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 never
again pass this threshold while I live, for I will kill you like a
mad dog and throw you out of the door! . . . I have no longer any
daughter!"
"Very well, I will go . . ." she answered mechanically.
"I no longer have any daughter! Henceforth I don't want to know you
or hear anything of you! . . . Go and perish . . . I will kill
you! . . ." he shouted, rushing up and down the room like a madman.
His insane violence now burst out in full force. He rushed out of
the house and from the window Janina saw him running toward the
woods.
She sat silent, dumb, and as though turned to ice. She had expected
everything, but never this. She burned with resentment but not a
single tear clouded her eye. She gazed about her distractedly, for
that hoarse cry still rang in her ears: "Get out of here! . . . get
out!"
"I will go, I will go . . ." she whispered in a humble and broken
voice 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 in
her eyes she began to comfort her, but Janina gently pushed her
away. 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 be
placated. . . ."
"No . . . I will not stay here any longer. I have enough of this
torment . . . enough . . . ."
"Are you going to your aunt's house?"
Janina was sunk in thought for a moment, but suddenly her gloomy
face 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, by
the Viennese line to Warsaw. . . ."
"If I were you, Janina, I'd think it over. . . . Later you may
regret 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 and
notes, and various trifles she carefully folded away into her
school-day trunk, as though she were returning from her vacation.
At the end she bade farewell to Krenska indifferently. Outwardly she
appeared calm and cool, while a slight tremor of her lips alone, and
an inner tremor that she could not still, were the only traces of
the storm.
She ordered her things carried downstairs, and, having still an
hour's time, she went to the woods.
"Forever . . ." she said in a subdued tone, as though addressing the
trees that seemed to bend toward her with a mournful murmur and
rustling of their leaves.
"Forever! . . ." she whispered, gazing at the crimson gleams of the
setting sun that filtered through the tangled branches of the
beeches and shone upon the ground.
The woods seemed wrapt in a great silence, as though they were
listening to her words of final farewell and dumbly wondering how
one who had been born and reared in their midst, who had lived with
their life, who had dreamed so many dreams in their embracing
silence, could bid farewell.
The trees murmured mournfully. A sigh like a song of farewell and a
sad reproach echoed through the wood. The ferns stirred with a
gentle motion, the young hazel leaves fluttered restlessly, the
pines rustled softly with their slender needles the whole wood
trembled and became alive with a prolonged moan. The song of the
birds sounded in broken, startled little snatches, while over the
sky, and over the earth carpeted with leaves and golden mosses and
snowy valley-lilies, and through the whole verdant wood there
flitted mysterious shadows, sounds and calls like the echo of
sorrowful sobbing.
"Stay with me! . . . Stay!" the wood seemed to say.
The torrent roared noisily, swept away the broken boughs that
impeded its course, circled and descended in a cloud of foam, a
cascade of mist shining in the sun with all the colors of the
rainbow; it went irresistibly onward, triumphantly, whispering:
"Go! . . . Go!"
Then there followed a great silence, broken only by the hum of
insects 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, the
woodpaths, and the hillsides.
Then she began to think of the new existence before her. There
slowly arose in her soul a certain self-conscious power and
increasing courage.
When she spied her father on the station platform, not so much as a
tremor disturbed her. Already there loomed between them that new
world which already lured her.
She even went to the station-master's office for a ticket. She stood
before the window and asked for it in a loud voice. Orlowski (for he
sold the tickets himself) raised his head with a violent start and
something like a red shadow passed over his face, but he did not
utter a word. He calmly handed her her change and stared at her
coldly, stroking his beard.
On leaving, she turned her head and met his burning gaze. He started
violently 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 deep
into her heart.
The train arrived and she got on. From the window of the car she
still kept gazing at the station. Krenska waved to her with a
handkerchief from the house and pretended she was wiping away tears.
Orlowski, in a red cap and immaculately white gloves, paced up and
down the platform with a stiff official air and did not glance even
once in her direction.
The bell rang and the train pulled out.
The telegrapher was bowing his farewell to her, but she did not see
him; she saw only how her father slowly turned about and entered the
office.
"Forever! . . ." she whispered. Orlowski came in for supper at the
usual hour.
Krenska, in spite of her joy at Janina's departure, was uneasy; she
glanced into his eyes with a feeling of fear, walked about even more
silently than usual, and was humbler and smaller than ever before.
Orlowski seemed to be wrestling with himself, for he did not burst
forth in curses and did not even mention Janina.
On the following day only he locked Janina's room and put the key
away in his desk.
He did not sleep that night; his eyes were sunken and his face
deathly pale. Krenska heard him walking up and down his room all
night, but on the following day he was at work as usual.
At dinner Krenska plucked up courage to speak to him about
something.
"Aha . . . I have still to settle with you!" he said.
Krenska grew pale. She began to speak to him about Janina, about her
sympathy 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 wanted
to. . . . 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, can
leave to-day. I will pay you what is due you and then get out of
this house as fast as you can go, or I swear to God I'll have my
workmen throw you out! If I am to be alone I'll be entirely
alone . . . without any guardians! A cur!"
Banging his glass against the table with such force that it flew
into splinters, he went out.