In a few days after the premiere of The Churls, which remained upon
the bill, but attracted ever smaller audiences, Glogowski came to
Janina's home.
"What is the matter with you? . . ." she exclaimed, extending her
hand in friendly greeting.
"Nothing. . . . Well, I improved my play a little. Did you read the
criticisms?"
"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 very
good, original, and superbly realistic play; that with Glogowski
there had, at last, appeared a real dramatist who had let a current
of fresh air into the stagnant and anaemic atmosphere of our
dramatic creativity, and had given us real people and real life. The
only cause for regret was that the staging of the play was beneath
criticism and the acting of it, with one or two exceptions,
scandalous.
The reviewer of one of the most estimable dailies for two whole days
rambled on in a special supplement about the history of the theater
in France and about German actors, he discussed theatrical novelties
and after every two paragraphs or so would remark in parenthesis: "I
saw him at the Odeon," "I heard this at the Burg Theater" "I admired
such acting in London," etc. Then he adduced various theatrical
anecdotes, praised actors who had died half a century ago, harked
back to the past of the stage, spoke in several paragraphs about the
red 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 probably
give his opinion of the play itself only after the author had
written another one, for this one was merely to be forgiven a
novice.
A third reviewer contended that the play was not at all bad and
would even be excellent, if the author had chosen to honor
theatrical traditions and added music and dances to it.
A fourth took a diametrically opposite viewpoint, maintaining that
the play was positively worthless, that it was rubbish, but that the
author possessed at least the one merit that he had avoided the cut
and dried formulas by failing to introduce the usual songs and
dances which always lower the value of folk plays.
In the fifth review a "specialist" on garden-theaters wrote about a
hundred paragraphs somewhat to this effect: "The Churls by Mr.
Glogowski hm! . . . not a bad thing . . . it would even be entirely
good . . . but . . . although, considering again . . . at any
rate . . . one must have the courage to tell the truth. . . . At all
events . . . be that as it may . . . (with a little qualifying
phrase) the author has a talent. The play is . . . hm . . . let us
see, how can we define it? About two months ago I wrote something
about it, so I refer those that are interested to my former
article. . . . They played it excellently," and he enumerated the
entire cast, placing beside the name of each actress a sugary
epithet, and an ingratiating remark, a polite description, a
melancholy equivocation and an empty phrase.
"What do you call all that?" inquired Janina.
"A libretto for an operetta. Entitle it Theatrical Criticisms and
set it to music and you will have such a show that the whole nation
will 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 immediately
start working on it. I have received a job as a dramatic coach at
Radomsk and I shall go there for a half year. I am only waiting for
the final notification."
"Is it absolutely necessary for you to go?"
"Yes, I must! Dramatic coaching is my only means of support. For two
months I have been without any occupation and now I am penniless. I
presented the play at my own expense, paid my respects to the
public, had a good time at Warsaw and now it is time to quit! It is
time to ring down the curtain so that I may prepare for another
farce. Goodbye, Miss Janina. Before I leave, I'll drop in here or at
the theater."
He shook hands with her, exclaimed, "May the deuce take me!" and
hurried away.
Janina was sad. She had become so accustomed to Glogowski, to his
eccentricities, paradoxes, and to that rough and ready manner which
was merely a screen for his shyness and hypersensitive delicacy that
regret filled her at the thought that she was now to remain alone.
She had no more money left and was living solely on what she
received at the theater. Janina dared not admit it to herself, but
with each new request for money she would be reminded of her home
and of those times when it was unnecessary for her to think of
anything, for she had all she needed. She felt deeply humiliated by
this almost daily begging for a few meager copecks, but there was no
way out of it, unless it was the one that she constantly read in the
gray eyes of Sowinska and saw exemplified in the life of her
companions.
Almost each evening Janina would stroll on Theater Place. If she was
in a great hurry, she would only pass through the place, get a
glimpse of the Grand Theater and return home again, but if she had
plenty of time she would find a seat on the square or on a bench
near the tramcar station and from there gaze at the rows of columns,
at the lofty profile of the theater's facade and lose herself in
dreaming. She somehow felt that those walls drew her irresistibly to
them. She experienced moments of deep delight when passing under the
colonnade, or when in the calm of a bright night she viewed the long
gray mass of the edifice. That huge stone giant seemed to speak to
her and she would listen to the whispers, the echoes, and the sounds
that floated from it. Spread out before her in the dim twilight and
visible to her soul alone, there would pass before her imagination
the scenes that were acted there not long ago.
An additional reason for losing herself in dreams was to dull the
pinch of poverty, that had become more acute, for the second half of
the theatrical season, from a financial standpoint, was a great deal
worse than the first. The attendance was increasingly smaller
because 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 would
take the cash box and make away with it under the pretext that he
was ill, leaving only a few rubles to be divided among the company
and, if he was caught before he made his escape, he would almost
cry.
And if he led anyone by the arm in a friendly manner to the box
office it was a prearranged sign for Gold, who was to say that there
was 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't
even enough to pay the gas bills and where am I going to get the
money for the rent? Why, there isn't enough to pay running
expenses."
"Let him have at least something. Perhaps we can put off the payment
of some bill to-day . . ." Cabinski would pretend to intercede.
He would then leave an order for the payment of the money and walk
away. But it almost always so happened that Gold did not have the
sum for which the order was made out. The amount paid was always
short, even if it were only by a few copecks. The actors called him
all sorts of names, but each took what was offered.
Gold pretended to be insulted and usually appealed to the
directress, who would always sit in the box office whenever she was
not taking part in the play. Cabinska would then sharply reproach
the actors and loudly praise the honesty of Gold, who with the small
salary that he received helped his sister, in addition to supporting
himself. Gold would beam with joy at the remembrance of his sister;
his eyes would flash with tenderness and at such moments he would
fervently promise to pay the missing amount on the following day
without fail; but he never paid.
The performances were rattled off to get through with them, for the
general disorder caused by Cabinski's over-thieveries was growing
ever greater and, moreover, the nearness of the departure for
Warsaw, the debts in which all were swamped, the approach of winter
and the worry over securing new engagements did not put anyone in a
mood for playing.
And all the while Cabinski, kissed everyone and promised to pay, but
never did so. He knew how to arrange matters so skillfully and acted
so excellently the part of a man worried about the welfare of
everyone that Janina feeling his troubles and believing him, often
lacked the courage to remind him of the money he owed her. Moreover,
she knew that between the director and his wife there went on a
continual battle over expenses and that the nurse often bought
various things for the children out of her own savings, while
Cabinska would sit twice as long at the pastry shop to avoid hearing
the complaints.
Slowly, but in an ever narrowing circle, poverty hemmed Janina in
and clouded her face with ceaseless worry.
Janina suffered all the more in her present condition because she
was unable to seclude herself from other people as she used to do at
Bukowiec after every quarrel with her father. She could not rave
with the gales and calm herself inwardly by sheer physical
exhaustion. She tramped about the city but everywhere she met too
many people. She would have gladly confided to Glogowski all that
troubled her, but had not the courage to do so, for she was
restrained by pride. Glogowski seemed to guess her condition, or at
least her worries, and would often remind her that she ought to tell
him everything . . . everything. But she did not do so.
She stayed at home as little as possible, and whenever she entered
the 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 out
into the street on the morrow that frightened her, but the fact that
Mme. Anna or Sowinska might say to her curtly: "Pay what you owe
me."
But that moment finally arrived. While eating her dinner Janina knew
the inevitable had come. She caught just one glance of Mme. Anna's
eyes while she was serving the soup and in them read everything.
After the meal, which to Janina had been torture, Mme. Anna followed
her immediately and, in the most unconcerned manner, began to relate
something about a fantastic customer. Then, suddenly, as though she
had remembered something, she said: "Oh yes, I almost forgot!
Perhaps you will let me have that half-month's rent, for I must pay
the 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't
think that I can feed anyone free of charge . . . just for fun, or
for the sake of having them as an ornament in my home! A fine
ornament indeed, that stays up all night and comes home only in the
wee hours of the morning!"
"You needn't fear that I won't pay you!" cried Janina suddenly
aroused.
"I need the money right away!"
"You will have it . . . in an hour!" answered Janina, making some
sudden determination; she glanced with such scorn at Mme. Anna that
the latter left without a word, slamming the door after her.
From her companions Janina had heard something about the pawnshop
and she immediately went there to pawn her gold bracelet, the only
one 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 the
restaurant; I don't want to trouble you."
"Just as you like. If things here don't suit you, you are free to do
as 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 paying
Mme. Anna she could get all the food that she needed. Wolska
directed her to a cheap lunch-room and she went there for her
dinners; when she had not money enough for that, a roll with a
sardine had to suffice her for the entire day.
But one day the theater was closed, for there were only twenty
rubles in the treasury; on the following day the performance was
postponed because of a heavy downpour. Janina, like everyone else,
did not receive a single copeck from Cabinski and during those two
days had absolutely nothing to eat.
This first hunger which she could not appease because she had
nothing to appease it with had a fearful effect upon her. She felt
within 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 that
sensation of hunger within her. It seemed strange to her that she
felt 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 great
artists in various ages also suffered poverty and hunger. The
thought consoled her for a while. She felt as though she were
anointed with the first pang of martyrdom for art's sake.
She smiled in the mirror with a melancholy look at her yellowish and
worn face. She tried to read to rid herself, as it were, of her own
personality, but she could not, for she constantly felt that growing
hunger.
She gazed out of the window at the long yard surrounded on all sides
by the high windows of the adjoining houses, but she saw how in a
few houses people were sitting down to the table and saw the workmen
in the yard also eating their dinner from small clay pots. She
quickly drew back from the window for she felt hunger like a steel
hand with sharp claws tearing her even more violently.
"Everybody is eating!" Janina said to herself as though this was the
first time that she had taken note of that fact.
Later she lay down and slept until the evening without going either
to the rehearsal or to Cabinska's home, but she felt even weaker
upon awaking and had a painful dizziness in her head, while that
keen and constant sapping sensation within herself tormented her so
that she wept.
In the evening in the dressing-room a boisterous gayety possessed
Janina; she laughed continually, joked and made fun of her
companions quarreled over some trifle with Mimi and then flirted
from the stage with the occupants of the front row of seats.
When the counselor appeared behind the scenes right after the first
act with a box of candy, Janina greeted him joyously and pressed his
hand so tightly that the old man became confused. Afterwards she sat
down in some dark corner, waiting for the stage-director to cry:
"Enter!" When the darkness and silence enveloped her, she broke into
convulsive sobbing.
After the performance Janina received a quadruple payment on account
two whole rubles. Cabinski gave them to her himself in secret so
that the others might not see it.
Janina went out for supper on the veranda and became intoxicated
with one glass of whiskey so that she herself requested Wladek to
escort her home.
From that evening Wladek followed her like a shadow and began
openly to show her his love, paying no attention to the fact that
his mother was asking everybody in the theater about him and
constantly tracking both him and Janina.
One day Glogowski came rushing into Janina's home and cried out
already from the doorway: "Well, I have come back again to my
Zulus! . . ."
He flung his hat on a trunk, sat on the bed and began to roll a
cigarette.
Janina gazed at him calmly and thought how strange it was that the
coming of this friend who had interested her so deeply in the past
should now leave her so indifferent.
"So you do not weep with joy at seeing me again, eh? Ha! I'll have
to 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 the
matter with Kotlicki? He does not come to the theater any more and I
can't find him anywhere. He must have journeyed somewhere."
"I have not seen him since the night of that supper," answered
Janina slowly.
"There must be some reason for his disappearance! Probably some
adventure, some love affair, some . . . But why should I bother
about such a green monkey, eh? Isn't that true?"
"Indeed it is!" whispered Janina, turning her face toward the
window.
"Oh! and what does that mean?" he cried, glancing sharply into her
eyes. "Goodness, how you have changed! Sunken and glassy eyes,
yellowish complexion, sharpened features. . . . What does it all
mean?" he asked in a quieter tone.
Suddenly he struck his hand to his forehead and began to run up and
down the room like a maniac.
"What an idiot I am. What a monster! Here I am parading about
Warsaw, while here real, artistic poverty has quartered itself in
earnest! Miss Janina," he cried, taking her hand and looking
steadily into her eyes, "Miss Janina! I want you to tell me
everything as at confession. May the deuce take me, but you must
tell me!"
Janina was silent; but seeing his honest face and hearing that
sympathetic voice whose accents had a strange way of gripping one's
heart, she suddenly felt overcome by feeling, and tears stood in her
eyes. She could not speak for emotion.
"Well, well, there's no use crying, for I shall depart anyway," he
said jokingly to hide his own emotion. "Now, just listen to me . . .
but without any protests or loud opposition, for I detest
parliamentarism! I see you are in poverty and theatrical poverty in
the bargain. . . . Well, I happen to know what it's like. Now, for
goodness' sake, stop blushing. Poverty that is honestly acquired is
not anything to be ashamed of! It's nothing but an ordinary smallpox
which all people who are worth anything in this world have to pass
through. Ho! ho! I have been playing blindman's buff with troubles
since 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 it
under Janina's pillow and returned to his former seat.
"'Now we are agreed, are we not, my cousin . . .' said Louis XI
after beheading the Duke of Anjou. I will accept no appeal and if
you 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 her
body.
"No, no! Do not humiliate me! I am unfortunate enough as it is," she
whispered, firmly holding his hand.
"There you have a woman's philosophy! May the deuce take me, but
that which I did is as natural as the fact that I will some day blow
out my brains and that you will become a great actress!"
Janina began to expostulate with him, and finally to urge him to
take back his money, saying that she did not need it, that she would
not accept it, and showing a deep aversion to being helped.
Glogowski became gloomy and said roughly: "What! May the deuce take
me, but of the two of us I certainly am not the fool! But no! I
refuse to get provoked about it. I shall sit down calmly and talk it
over with you seriously. I don't want you to get angry at me over
such an empty thing as money. You don't want to take it, although
you need it, and why? Because a false shame deters you, because you
have been taught that such simple human things as helping one
another lowers one's pride. Such conceptions are already becoming
putrid. To the museum with them! Those are foolish and evil
prejudices. May the deuce take me, but it requires a European brain
and hysterical subtlety to hesitate to accept money from a human
being like yourself when you are in need. Why and to what purpose do
you think the human herd unites itself into some form of society? Is
it mutually to devour and rob one another or mutually to help one
another? I know you will tell me that it is otherwise, but I answer
you 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 ought
to 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, swore
occasionally, 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 all
convinced, accepted his proffered aid with a grateful handclasp only
because 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 grateful
and obligated to you . . ." murmured Janina.
"If you only knew how much kindness people have shown me! I would
like to repay only one hundredth part of it to others. I will add
yet 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 am
sure, for I have determined to join the theater in the spring, if
only for a half year so that I may gain a better knowledge of the
stage."
"Oh, that's an excellent idea!"
"Now we are even with one another, as my father used to say after he
had massaged my hide so that it shone as though freshly tanned. I
leave you my address and say nothing, only remind you that you are
to tell me everything by letter . . . everything! Do you give me
your word?"
"I give you my word!" Janina answered gravely.
"I trust your word as though it were that of a man, although with
women a word of honor is usually an empty word only, which they make
use of, but never fulfill. Goodbye!"
Glogowski pressed both her hands firmly, raised them a little as
though 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 a
gratitude toward him and felt so cheered and strengthened by her
talk with him that she regretted she did not know on what train
Glogowski was leaving, for she had a desire to see him once more.
Then again, there arose in her something that protested loudly
against the aid he had given her, something that saw in that
kindness an insult.
"Alms!" Janina whispered bitterly and felt a burning pain of
humiliation.
"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 on
someone for support? Must there always be someone watching over me?
The others know how to help themselves, why can't I?" she asked
herself.
Janina pondered over this, but a moment later she went to the
pawnshop to redeem her bracelet and on the way bought herself an
inexpensive autumn hat.
Life dragged on for her slowly, sluggishly, and wearily.
Janina was sustained only by the hope, or rather by a deep faith
that all this would change radically and soon, and in this longing
anticipation she began to pay ever more attention to Wladek. She
knew that he loved her. She listened almost daily to his confessions
and proposals, smiling deep within herself and thinking that in
spite of all she could not become that which her companions became.
Their mode of life aroused a deep aversion in her for she felt a
truly organic revulsion to all forms of filth. But these attentions
of Wladek had at least this effect, that they awakened in her for
the first time conscious thoughts of love.
She dreamed at moments of loving a man to whom she could give
herself entirely and for all time; she dreamed of a united life full
of ecstasy and love, such a love as poets presented in their plays;
and then there would pass before her mind the figures of all the
great lovers about whom she had read, passionate whispers, burning
embraces, volcanic passions and that whole Titanic love life, the
remembrance of which sent a tremor of delight through her.
Janina did not know whence these dreams came, but they would visit
her ever more frequently in spite of the poverty which again began
to grow more distressing, and the frequent hunger that gripped her
as it were in bony embrace. Her bracelet again went to the pawnshop,
for she continually had to buy some new article of wear for the
stage, so that often she was forced to deny herself food only to be
able to buy what she needed. New plays were continually presented to
draw the public but success was as far off as ever.
Such a situation harassed and tormented Janina dreadfully, robbing
her of her strength, but it also awakened a rebellion which began to
seethe silently within her. She felt at first an indefinable
animosity toward everybody. She regarded with a fierce envy the
women whom she met on the street.
Often, she would be seized with a mad desire to stop one of those
well-dressed ladies and ask her whether she knew what poverty was.
She observed intently their faces, their clothes, and their smiles
and came to the painful conclusion that these ladies could not know
that there were other people who suffered, wept, and were hungry.
But later Janina began to reason that she herself was dressed in the
same way as these other women; that there may be among them others
in the same plight as she, and that perhaps unknowingly they passed
her on the way, hungry and desperate, hurling the same glances at
other passers-by that she did. She tried to distinguish the faces of
such sufferers in the multitude, but could not. All appeared to be
satisfied and happy.
Then, something like the triumph of her own ascendancy over this
well-dressed and well-fed multitude lit up Janina's face. She felt
herself to be far superior to this world of everyday mortals.
"I have an idea, an aim!" she thought. "What do they live for? What
is their object in life?" she would often ask herself. And unable to
answer that question, Janina would smile pityingly at the emptiness
of their existence.
"A race of butterflies that knows not whence, nor why, nor to what
end their life has been given them!" she whispered, sating herself
to her heart's content with that silent scorn of people that was
growing to abnormal proportions in her.
Cabinska, Janina now hated with her whole soul, for although Pepa
always treated her with a sugary affability, she never paid her for
Yadzia's piano lessons, taking advantage of Janina's situation and
abilities with a hypocritical smile of friendliness. Janina could
not sever relations with her, for she felt distinctly that behind
that mask of politeness that Pepa wore there was hidden a fury who
would not forgive her that. Furthermore, she hated Cabinska as a
woman, a mother, and an actress. She had come to know her well, and
moreover, in her present period of continual strain and struggle,
she had either to love or hate someone immensely. Janina did not
love anyone as yet, but already she hated.
"Do you know it is hardly believable that such an incompetent judge
as the directress should herself assign the roles for all our
plays!" she once remarked to Wladek greatly embittered by the fact
that she had been ignored in the selection of the cast for an old
melodramatic 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 to
present next week. Some amateur wishes to join our company and he is
to 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. I
can bring you the play, if you wish."
"Good! we can read it together."
On the morrow Janina received a solemn promise from Cabinska that
she would be given the part.
In the afternoon Wladek brought Doctor Robin. This was his first
visit to Janina's home, so he took care to appear particularly
handsome, elegant, polite, and somewhat absent-minded. He acted love
and respect for Janina with the skill of a virtuoso; he was very
quiet, as though from an excess of happiness.
"For the first time I feel shy and happy!" he said, kissing Janina's
hand.
"Why shy? You are always so sure of yourself on the stage!" she
answered, a bit confused.
"Yes, on the stage, where one only plays happiness, but not
here . . . where I am really happy."
"Happy?" she repeated.
Wladek glanced at Janina with such passionate intensity, with such
mastery of facial expression, accentuated by a rapturous smile,
simulating the ecstasy and transport of love, that had he shown this
on the stage he would have been warmly applauded. Janina understood
him excellently and something stirred in her as though some new
string in her heart had been lightly plucked.
Wladek began to read the play. With each of "Mary's" words, Janina's
enthusiastic nature burst forth anew. With bated breath, and eyes
fixed on Wladek, she listened, not daring to mar, either by word or
gesture, the impression that his reading made on her. She feared to
dispel the charm that spoke through his eloquent voice and in the
velvety softness of his black eyes.
When he had finished reading, the girl cried out in rapture: "What a
splendid role!"
"I am willing to wager that you will make a furore in it," remarked
Wladek.
"Yes . . . I feel that I could play it fairly well. 'Garrick, that
creator of souls, so mighty in Coriolanus!'" she whispered,
repeating a remembered line of the play.
And Janina's face glowed with such fervor, so radiant did she become
with her deep inner joy, that Wladek scarcely recognized her.
"You are an enthusiast," he said.
"Yes, because I love art! Give all for art and everything is
contained in art! . . . that is my motto. Beyond art I see almost
nothing," answered Janina suddenly kindling anew with ardor.
"Even love?" asked Wladek.
"But art appears to me to be a greater and completer expression of
the ideal than love . . ." answered Janina.
"But it is more alien to human beings and not so necessary to life
as is love. Without art the world could exist, but without
love . . . never! Moreover, art causes more painful disappointments
than love."
"But it also gives greater joys. Love is an individual emotion; art
is a social emotion, a synthesis. One loves it with one's humanity,
one suffers for it, but only through art does one sometimes become
immortal!"
"Those are dreams. Thousands have given their lives to become
convinced of that and thousands have cursed that unattainable
mirage."
"But those thousands had their lives filled with that mirage and
felt 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 in
joy, in dejection as well as ecstasy. Even this in itself is
happiness: to be able to develop one's self spiritually; to reach
far out into infinity with the arms of desire; to create new worlds
in our mind, larger and more beautiful than those surrounding us; to
chant, even through tears and pain, hymns to beauty and immortality;
to dream, but to dream so intensely as to forget about life entirely
and to live in dreams alone!"
Janina felt so great a flood of happiness and inspiration flowing
into her soul that she spoke, as it were, only in periods of her
thought, so that she might express herself at least in part. She
spoke, entirely forgetful of the fact that some one was listening to
her 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 Janina
was unfurling before him the peacock feathers of fervor and
enthusiasm merely to fascinate and conquer him. He did not answer or
interrupt her, for it finally began to bore him.
"That role of 'Mary' is a trifle too sentimental . . ." added Janina
after 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 and
dreamed 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, an
opportunity. . . ."
"If I only could. . . . Believe me when I say, that with my whole
heart I desire to see you reach the heights of art."
"I believe you," Janina answered in a quieter tone. "And I thank you
very 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, if
you 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 my
time 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 have
a 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 called
Janina a "comedienne" she had made him feel abashed with her
simplicity and enthusiasm. Moreover, he felt in her a certain
intellectual and artistic superiority.
Janina feverishly applied herself to the study of Doctor Robin. In a
few days she knew not only the role of "Mary," but had memorized the
entire play. So intensely eager was she to play the role, that it
seemed as though she were staking her whole life on this
performance. Her former dreams that had been subdued a bit by
poverty and the feverish life of the theater now again burst forth
with a flaming intensity that dazzled and hypnotized her. The
theater again took so powerful a hold on Janina that there was no
room in her consciousness for anything else. In her hours of ecstasy
it appeared to her like a mystic altar suspended high above the gray
vale of everyday life and glowing with flames like a second burning
bush of Moses; it seemed to her like a miracle that endured
eternally.
Wladek came to see Janina each day in the interval between the
rehearsal and the performance, although he was already beginning to
be immensely bored by her endlessly repeated raptures and was
growing impatient over the fact that in her mad absorption in art
she did not pay much attention to him. He could not penetrate her
morbid enthusiasm, as he called it, with his love, but he
nevertheless continued to go to her.
He began to desire Janina's love ever more strongly. He was invited
by her naivete and by the talent which he felt she possessed.
Moreover, he had long since desired just such an elegant and
educated mistress. He wanted by all means to possess this refined
and genteel girl, who was so different from his former mistresses
and who captivated him by the charm of her superiority. His triumph
would be all the greater, he told himself, because of the fact that
she seemed to him one of those ladies of the fashionable world upon
whom he would often cast covetous glances in the Ujazdowskie Allees.
Janina had not told Wladek that she loved him, but he already saw it
in her eyes and spun an ever stronger web about her made up of
smiles, passionate words, sighs, and exaggerated respect.
For Janina this was the most beautiful period that she had known in
her life. Poverty she treated with scorn, as though it were only a
temporary thing that would soon pass away.
Sowinska, after Wladek's frequent visits, became more intimate and
friendly with Janina and advised her to sell those parts of her
wardrobe which she did not need, even offering to do it for her.
And so life went on for Janina who was oblivious to everything else
but that performance of Doctor Robin which she awaited with the
greatest impatience. She lived, as it were, in a troubled dream.
Through the prism of dreams the world again appeared brighter to
her, and people kind. She forgot about everything, even about
Glogowski, whose recent letter she laid away only half read, for she
now lived entirely in the future. She fortified herself against the
present with dreams of what was to come.
Furthermore, Janina loved Wladek. She did not know how it had come
about, but she now knew that she could not do without him. She felt
very happy and peaceful, when, leaning on his arm, she walked along
the streets and listened to his low, melodious voice. The soft
velvety glances of his dark eyes made her glow with passion and a
sweet helplessness . . . .
Everything about him attracted her. He appeared so beautiful upon
the stage! He acted with such fervor and lyricism the parts of
unhappy lovers in the melodramas! He spoke, moved about and posed
with such charming simplicity. He was the favorite of the public;
even the press bestowed frequent praises upon him and predicted a
brilliant artistic future for him.
It pleased Janina to see him applauded on the stage. And so
skillfully did he know how to exhibit the resources of his brain,
that he was generally taken for an educated man, while in reality he
possessed only cleverness and the brazenness of a Warsaw loafer and
trickster. Moreover, for Janina he was the first and only man to
whom she had ever surrendered herself. It seemed to her that this
bound them for all time and indissolubly.
It happened, as it were, of itself, after one of the rehearsals of
Doctor Robin in which Wladek acted as a substitute in the role of
"Garrick." When they had left the theater he spoke or rather
declaimed to her about love with a volcanic outburst of passion and
accentuated his emotion with such pathos that he stirred her to the
very depths of her soul. She felt sudden tears of tenderness welling
up in her eyes; and a desire for tremendous happiness through life
and death remained in her dreaming heart. Her whole soul was
absorbed in the desire for love.
Janina did not even know what was happening to her, for she could
not resist the fascination of his voice. That musical pleading of
love, those burning kisses, and those passionate glances flooded her
entire being with an overwhelming and mad desire for joy. She
abandoned herself to him with the passiveness of a fascinated
creature, without a word of protest or resistance, but also without
a consciousness of what she was doing; in a word, she was
hypnotized.
She did not even know what it was in him that she loved: the actor
masterfully playing upon her emotions and enthusiasm, or the man.
Janina did not think of this. She loved him because she loved him
and because he personified the theater and art for her.
It seemed to Janina that through his eyes she saw farther and
deeper. Her soul was growing (as the peasants describe certain
stages in the development of youth), so besides her distant plans of
fame in the future, she needed something for herself alone, she
needed to strengthen herself and support herself on some loving
heart which would at the same time serve as a stepping-stone for her
own elevation. She no longer felt lonely, for she could now reveal
to Wladek her most secret thoughts, dreams, and projects for the
future and go over various heroic roles together with him. He was a
sort of physical complement of her, and outlet for her excessive
energy and dreams.
Janina did not submerge and lose herself in Wladek's being, but
rather absorbed him into herself. And not for one moment did she
think that she had surrendered herself to him, that he was
henceforth her lover and lord and that she belonged to him! She did
not even consider whether he had a soul or not. It sufficed her to
know that he was handsome, popular, that he loved her and that she
needed him. Even in her most intimate confidences and whispers of
love there was a tone of unconscious superiority. She spoke with him
continually but almost never asked him for his opinion and very
seldom listened to his replies. Wladek could not understand this,
but he was conscious of it and it acted as an unpleasant restraint
upon him, for in spite of their intimate relation, he could not feel
at ease with her in his own way. It wounded his self-love, but he
had no way of remedying it. He possessed her body, but not her soul
that mysterious something, that love that gives itself for life and
eternity and makes of itself a footstool for the lover. This
attitude of Janina's irritated him, but nevertheless attracted him
so irresistibly that he doubled his pretenses of love, thinking that
by a larger dose of sentimental falsehood, and a better acting of
emotion 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 in
spite of that she felt content. She often suffered hunger, but it
was enough for her to have Wladek at her side and to become absorbed
in her role, to forget about the whole world.
The performance of Doctor Robin was postponed from day to day, for
the amateur who was to make his debut in it became ill. In the
meanwhile, other plays had to be given; so Janina was forced to
content herself with waiting. She was consumed by impatience and the
ambition to rise at once above the throng of her companions and was
also impelled by the hope of ending her poverty by this means and
finally, by the need of her own soul which had formed its own
conception of the character of "Mary" and had to give it forth.
Janina did not even pay attention to what was brewing behind the
scenes where every day schemes and projects for new companies were
formed, only to be abandoned after a few days. Krzykiewicz had
already delicately suggested to Janina on a few occasions that, if
she wished, she could secure an engagement with Ciepieszewski. She
declined, for she remembered Topolski's project and wished to wait
for its realization, knowing that he was counting on her for sure.
Topolski was in reality organizing a company. It was meant to be a
secret as yet, but everyone knew about it. It was openly said that
Mimi, Wawrzecki, Piesh with his wife, and a few of the younger
forces had already signed a contract and that Topolski had quietly
closed a deal for the Lubelsk Theater, a new building that had just
been opened. It was known for certain that Kotlicki and others had
advanced him the necessary capital.
Cabinski, of course, knew all about this and loudly ridiculed these
projects. He knew very well that he could win back all those who had
joined Topolski by merely giving them larger advances on their
salaries. He predicted that Topolski would not hold out for one
season and would go to smash, for he did not believe that anyone was
willing 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 theater
which he unceremoniously termed an idiocy. Cabinski knew the public
well and knew what it wanted.
Topolski held frequent soirees at his home to which he invited all
those whom he might need. But he did not yet speak openly about his
company, leaving that to Wawrzecki who treated the matter
enthusiastically as though it were his own and used it to taunt
Cabinski with and to create more frequent rumpuses about his overdue
salary.
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, while
the women, if they were not gossiping or complaining, would enclose
themselves within a narrow circle for secret whispering from which
they barred Janina, fearing that she might betray something to
Cabinski, to whose home she went daily to give piano lessons.
At the last of these evenings, while they were having tea, Majkowska
quietly begged Janina to stay a little longer, promising that she
and Topolski would accompany her home.
Wladek never appeared at these affairs, for he was an open and
stanch supporter of Cabinski.
After all the rest had gone Topolski sat opposite Janina and began
to tell her about the company he was organizing.
"It will be an exemplary theater for true art! I have a splendid
ensemble of actors; I have made a contract for one of the best
theaters, the library is ready to be sent away and the costumes are
already half completed, hence we have almost all that is needed."
"What are you still lacking?" asked Janina, determining immediately
to ask for an engagement.
"A little money . . . a mere trifle of about a thousand rubles as a
working capital for the first month," answered Topolski.
"Couldn't you borrow it?"
"Yes . . . and that is precisely what I want to talk over with you
in a friendly way, for we already count you as one of us. I will
give you a good salary and alternating roles with Mela for I know
that you are a capable actress. You have the appearance, the voice
and the temperament, and, aside from intelligence, that is just what
is 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 her
habit, was almost lying on the table and gazing absently at the
lamp.
"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 to
help, for it is not only my duty, but also in my own interest! But
I'm very curious to know what I can do."
"It's a question of that one thousand rubles. The money is already
assured, only there is one little condition . . ."
"What is it?" Janina asked curiously.
Topolski drew closer to her, took hold of her hands in a friendly
way and only then answered:
"Miss Janina not only our theater, but your entire artistic future
depends on this, so I will tell you frankly that there is someone
who is ready to give even two thousand rubles, but he said that he
would 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 in
the room. Topolski gazed at her uneasily, while Majkowska had upon
her face an indescribably derisive smile.
Janina almost cried out with pain, so repulsive did that name and
proposal strike her and after a moment she arose from her chair and
said in a determined voice: "No! I will not go to Kotlicki . . . and
that which you have proposed to me is insulting and outrageous! Only
in the theater can people lose so entirely their moral sense as to
persuade others to base acts and purposely push them into the mire
of degradation, so that they themselves may profit. You have
miscalculated this time, my dear sir! I have not fallen so low as
that. What hurts me is that you could think even for a moment that I
would agree to go to Kotlicki, to Kotlicki, who is more repulsive to
me than the basest reptile!" she cried, carried away by passion.
"Miss Janina! Let us speak it over calmly and sensibly, without
getting excited."
"You dare to tell me not to get excited?"
"I must, for you are simply inexperienced; consequently that which I
ask of you appears to you as something monstrous, something that
will 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 in
amazement.
"Let us stop playing a comedy, let us drop this game of
hide-and-seek and look at things as they are and we shall see that I
am not proposing anything out of the ordinary to you. What am I
asking of you? Merely that you go to Kotlicki for the money which is
to be the foundation of our common future, the money which will
create our theater for us and without which none of us can budge
from Warsaw. So what is there wrong in this? What wrong can there be
in that which will make almost all of us happy?"
"What? Is it possible that you do not see any wrong in the fact that
I, a woman should go alone to the home of a man? And for what will
he 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 that
way; and are we thereby committing anything base? . . . No! for that
is a secondary thing, for we have something more important in our
minds: art!"
"No, I will not go!" answered Janina quietly, depressed by the
discovery that they all knew about her relation with Wladek.
She continued to listen to Topolski without hearing or understanding
his words. He began to expostulate with her, to beg, and to explain
that they were all sacrificing their very lives for the theater,
something more than the mere whim of a woman. He pointed out to her
that by her refusal she would deal a mortal blow to the newly
organized company; that they were all counting on her and would be
grateful to her until death, for by her sacrifice she would insure
the welfare of dozens of people; that the new theater would be
connected with her name. He wished by all means to break down her
opposition which he could not understand, but Janina remained
unmoved.
"If my life itself depended on it, I would not go; I would prefer to
die!" said Janina with final determination.
"Well then, good-bye!" answered Topolski angrily.
Janina kept looking at him and still wanted to explain herself more
fully, 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 with
her and, like an automaton she walked down the stairs and along the
streets to her home.
She felt sorry for the new company and regretted the prospect that
she was losing by breaking with Topolski but at the same time she
felt an unbearable shame consuming her at the thought that these
people should take her for such a degraded being by daring to make
such proposals to her and expecting that she would fulfill them.
Janina could not calm herself. That night she dreamed now of
Kotlicki, now of Wladek, then again of the theater. She heard how
all were cursing and reviling her, she saw as it were, a band of
people covered with rags and with hatred glowing in their eyes,
pursuing her with curses and trying to beat her. In those vaguely
outlined faces she recognized Mela, Topolski, Mimi, and Wawrzecki.
Again, she dreamed that she was walking along the street and that
everybody was staring at her so strangely and so horribly that she
felt like sinking into the earth to avoid their glances; but she had
no strength to move and that multitude slowly filed by her while
Topolski stood pointing at her and crying in a loud and derisive
voice: "Behold! she lived with Glogowski and is now the mistress of
Wladek!"
Janina could not bear that; she screamed wildly in her sleep for she
saw, as it were, her father approaching her with Krenska at his
side, pointing at her and calling: "She lived with Glogowski and now
is 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 appeared
the priest from Bukowiec, the teachers of her boarding school, her
former companions and Grzesikiewicz. All, all passed by her hastily
and stared at her with such a dreadful, horrible smile that it
pierced 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 she
threw 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, what
of it? Is it a crime?"
He sat down in an ill humor, began to rub his knee and tossed about
angrily 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 few
rubles and am unable to pay them back. I can't ask my mother for the
money, for she is sick again and it would only finish her! Cabinski
will 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 whole
night long and had lost all he had. Janina remembered the help she
had received from Glogowski, so without hesitation she took off her
gold watch and chain and laid it before Wladek.
"I have no money. Take this and pawn it and pay your debt and what
you have left over bring me back, for I also have nothing," she said
heartily.
"No, I shall not take it! What do you want to do that for? I really
don't need it. . . . My dear child! . . ." remonstrated Wladek in
his 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 that
with the money he might play again to win back what he had lost.
"No! What would that look like!" he whispered, his resistance
growing ever weaker.
"Go right away and on your way back stop in for me and we shall have
breakfast together," urged Janina.
Wladek kissed her, as though he were embarrassed, muttered something
about gratitude, but finally took the watch and went to pawn it.
He returned quickly with thirty rubles. He immediately borrowed
twenty 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 they
went out to breakfast.
Thenceforward they lived together. At the theater everyone knew
about their relation, but it was such a usual thing, that no one
paid attention to it. Only Sowinska would sometimes taunt Janina on
the score and slight her and, whereas not so long ago she had done
nothing but praise Wladek, she now told the vilest sort of tales
about him. She delighted in tormenting Janina in this manner, and
avenged herself in this way for the loss of her son's love.
At last it was announced that stage rehearsals of Doctor Robin were
to begin. Wladek brought this information to Janina, because for a
few days she had been very weak and had not left her home at all.
She felt an oppressive drowsiness and exhaustion and an unbearable
pain in her back. Then again such a feeling of helplessness and
discouragement would possess her that she wanted to cry and had no
desire to stir from her bed, but lay for whole days, gazing blankly
at the ceiling. The humming sensation in her head returned and she
suffered such a burning thirst that nothing could quench it.
However, on hearing that she was to take part in the play, Janina
immediately felt well and strong again.
She went to the rehearsal, trembling with fear, but on seeing the
person who was to play "Garrick," she quickly mastered herself. This
amateur was hardly more than a boy, skinny, awkward, and
simple-minded. He lisped and waddled about like a duck, but since he
was the cousin of one of the influential journalists who backed him,
he regarded everybody at the theater with a haughty expression and
treated them with an air of condescension. The members of the
company delicately ridiculed him to his face and laughed loudly at
him behind his back.
Everybody was present at the rehearsal, as though they had all
agreed upon it beforehand.
No sooner did Janina enter upon the stage than Majkowska
ostentatiously withdrew behind the scenes, while Topolski did not so
much as nod his head to her in greeting. Janina realized that
relations with them were severed for good, but she had no time to
think about it, for the rehearsal began immediately. Despite the
fact that she had at first intended merely to recite her role,
Janina could not now refrain from marking it, at least in its broad
outlines.
She was irritated by the fact that everyone was looking at her and
that from all directions numerous eyes were fixed upon her. It
seemed to her that she saw ridicule in their glances and derision on
all those lips, so at moments she would start nervously and break
out with all the force of her temperament, or again, she would speak
too softly.
Majkowska stood there hissing and laughing together with Zarnecka
and loudly voicing her opinion of Janina's acting. Topolski, the
stage-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 to
heart Mela's ridicule or Topolski's pedantic instructions. She
played on and rendered her role forcibly, if a little unevenly.
There followed a characteristic silence; nobody laughed nor jested
loudly.
The stage-director walked up and down behind the scenes contentedly
rubbing his hands and grunting: "Good, good, but she does not yet
put 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 of
us, out of politeness, blames you for it," answered Stanislawski for
his friend.
"Not that way! Who waves his arms in that manner? Are you trying to
make a windmill of yourself?" cried Topolski.
"Don't discourage her, remember it is her first rehearsal!" cried
Cabinska from the seats.
"You walk about the stage like a goose!" again remarked the
irritated 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 her
eyes, Janina played on, without letting herself be confused and
never for a moment losing her presence of mind.
When she had finished, Cabinska ostentatiously kissed her and began
to praise her aloud so that Majkowska could hear: "I congratulate
you 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 entire
character worked out in my head."
"We shall now have a real heroine, for one that is beautiful and
talented 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 was
like one immense vista of light in which Janina seemed eagerly
absorbed. 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 a
repertory of roles would immediately be assigned to her. She gave
free reign to her imagination and already saw herself upon some
pinnacle. She was already in that promised land of powerful emotions
about which she dreamed every day in that realm that swarmed before
her eyes with a stately throng of heroic figures, superhuman
passions, and dazzling beauty, a realm in which there reigned a
perfect harmony between dreams and reality.
Janina smiled with pity at those days of want and poverty, as though
she were bidding farewell to them forever. Everything that
surrounded her, even Wladek, paled into insignificance before her
fascinated eyes.
A thousand times she repeated the role of "Mary." She sat for hours
at a time before the mirror, practicing the appropriate facial
expression and became feverish with impatience while awaiting the
arrival of the momentous day. At night, Janina would sit half asleep
in her bed and gaze before her. It seemed to her that she saw the
crowded theater and the representatives of the press, that she heard
the quiet murmurs of the public, saw their enraptured glances, and
that she entered the stage and played. . . . Half unconsciously she
would repeat the words of her role, kindle with ardor, declaim them
with exaltation. Then, overcome by drowsiness again, she would smile
through tears of happiness for she heard most distinctly that
well-known and thrilling thunder of applause and cries of:
"Orlowska! Orlowska!" And with that smile on her face she would fall
asleep and wake again to continue her dreams.
Janina sold whatever she could to buy the appropriate costume for
her part. With a smile of contentment she would drive away Wladek so
that 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 gave
it to Majkowska.
Intrigue and envy had gained their end. Cabinski was forced to
yield, for Topolski had threatened to leave the company immediately
unless he took away the role from Janina and gave it to Majkowska.
It was the way he chose to avenge himself because of Janina's
refusal to go to Kotlicki.
Struck to the very heart, Janina almost lost her reason under this
blow. She began to stagger on her feet and felt that the whole
theater was whirling about her and that everything was sinking with
her into a bottomless darkness. She cast a glance of unspeakable
grief at all those about her, as though seeking for help, but on the
faces of most of the members of the company there was an expression
of merriment over what they thought was a splendid joke, and the
beastly joy of cretins at the suppression of talent. They mocked the
defeated aspirant with their glances; burning taunts and jibes began
to fall from all sides like stones upon her soul crushed by an
unexpected blow. Brutal laughs arose, scourging her as with a whip
and all the baseness of human delight in the pain of others found
its object and outlet.
And Janina stood there without a word or motion, with that dreadful
pain in her heart in which it seemed as though all the arteries had
been 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 and
felt a trifle sorry for Janina.
She remained standing behind the scenes with that overwhelming and
sharp pain of disappointment tearing at her soul. She felt such an
emptiness and loneliness that at moments it seemed to her as though
she were all alone in the world and that something had pinned her to
the earth with an immense weight and was crushing her down, that she
was falling with lightning speed to the bottom of some deep abyss
where a grayish-green whirlpool was dimly roaring.
Her thoughts and feelings were breaking and snapping under the
tremendous strain and tears of hopeless abandonment flooded her
eyes. She went to the dressing-room and sat down in the darkest
corner.
Her dreams were crumbling to pieces: those wonderful realms were
vanishing and sinking away in the misty distance, those enchanting
visions were waving like torn rags in her brain and soul.
The dull grayness of the dirty walls and decorations about her and
the throng of shabby, jeering beggars seemed to saturate and oppress
her whole being. She felt so utterly weary, broken, sick, and
helpless that she went out into the hall to look for Wladek to take
her 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 whirl
in her brain that she thought she would go mad . . . .
For a long time she sat in a senseless torpor and wept without being
able to restrain herself, for after partly regaining her
consciousness the memory of all her sufferings and disappointments
came back to her again. At last utterly worn out, and, lulled by the
silence that enveloped the theater after the rehearsal, she fell
asleep.
She was awakened by Rosinska who on that day had come earlier to the
dressing-room, for she was to begin the play. When she saw the
sleeping girl, the older actress was moved to pity. The remaining
shreds of her womanhood covered by the artificiality of theatrical
life, awoke in her at the sight of that pale face, worn by poverty
and dejection.
"Miss Janina--" whispered Rosinska tenderly.
Janina arose and began nervously to wipe away the traces of tears
from 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 you
must not take it so much to heart. If you want to be an artist you
must bear a great deal, suffer a great deal. My dear, if you only
knew what I had to go through and still have to. If you wanted to
grieve over all the afflictions that come to you, become irritated
over all the gossip they spread about you or weep over every
intrigue in which they try to entangle you, you would have neither
any tears, nor eyes, nor strength left! There's no use crying over
it, for things can't be any different in the theater! Moreover, you
haven't lost anything by it! That one disappointment makes you
richer 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 on
you. I heard what the cousin of that amateur said at the first
rehearsal."
"What good will all that do me, when I can't play and have nothing
to live on."
"That is all the doing of Majkowska. She forced Cabinski to take the
role away from you."
"I know she bears me a grudge, but I can't conceive why she should
revenge herself in such an inhuman way!"
"You don't know her yet. . . . I don't know what you two quarreled
about, but I do know that when she saw you on the stage at the first
rehearsal she became so greatly afraid that you might eclipse her
that she immediately began to lay plans for your undoing. I saw how
she hung about that amateur, how she fawned upon his cousin and
Cabinski, how she kissed the hands of the directress! I saw with my
own eyes! Did you ever hear of anyone degrading one's self in that
manner? But she attained her end. She has already done away with
many another in the same way. You probably do not know what I, an
actress of long standing and with so large a repertory, have to
suffer on her account. You could not notice what was being schemed,
for it was all done so quickly that besides myself, probably no one
else knew about it. Such a creature as she always has luck! But wait
I 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 noisy
chatter and the smell of powder and pigments that were being warmed
over the candles. They were beginning to dress.
At last Majkowska came in, stately and triumphant, with a bouquet in
her hands and roses in her corsage. Seeing Janina sitting alongside
of 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 to
Janina who wanted to leave.
"Don't you begin with me! Do you think I'm going to dress together
with 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 raise
her voice here."
Everybody in the dressing-room was shaking with laughter, while
Rosinska and Majkowska began to quarrel ever more vulgarly, without
however interrupting for a moment their make-up and hasty dressing.
Janina listened to the quarrel in silence. She hardly felt any
grievance toward Majkowska for depriving her of the role, but only a
physical aversion to her person. Majkowska now appeared to her so
filthy, brazen, and base that even her voice sounded disgusting.
Only when they began to play Doctor Robin, Janina stood behind the
scenes to see what would be done with her role. It is impossible to
describe that subtle, excruciating pain that rent her soul when she
saw Majkowska as "Mary" on the stage. She felt that that other woman
was tearing out piecemeal from her brain and heart every word, every
gesture, 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 she
might not behold any more of it, nor torment herself with
remembering the role as she had conceived it. "The thief!" she
finally whispered so loudly that Majkowska trembled on the stage.
Rosinska sat behind the scenes on the other side of the stage. As
soon as Majkowska entered there began a scene upon the stage for she
repeated each word after Mela in an undertone and in a false
intonation, laughed aloud at her acting, ridiculed and mimicked her
gestures.
At first Majkowska paid no attention to this, but finally she could
no longer refrain from looking behind the scenes and could not help
hearing that raillery and mimicry of herself. She could not catch
the 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 was
becoming worse all the time and she felt it, and began to throw
herself about the stage as though she were obsessed. Behind every
scene she saw faces laughing at her; even Dobek in his box stopped
his mouth with his hand so heartily amused was he by what was going
on. That deprived Majkowksa of the rest of her self-control.
As soon as she left the stage she threw herself at Rosinska with her
fists. There arose such a rumpus that the men had to part the two
actresses, for they had begun pulling the hair out of each other's
wigs. Majkowska was forcibly led to the dressing-room. She raged
like a mad woman and got an attack of hysteria. She smashed mirrors,
tore up costumes, and tossed about so violently that they had to
call a doctor and tie her hands and feet.
Cabinska pulled out the rest of his hair in despair, but the actors
laughed in their dressing-rooms and enjoyed themselves immensely.
The curtain had to be lowered in the middle of the play, and
Topolski, almost pale with anger announced to the audience: "Ladies
and Gentlemen! Because of the sudden and serious indisposition of
Miss Majkowska, Doctor Robin cannot be concluded. The following play
on the program will immediately begin."
Janina despite the satisfaction that she felt at the fiasco of her
enemy, began to feel sorry for Majkowska when she saw her senseless
and suffering. She was not yet enough of an actress to feel
indifferent to it, so she went to her, but seeing in the room the
doctor, and Cabinski, who was quarreling with Rosinska she hastily
retreated.
Rosinska, Wolska, and Mirowska declared outright to Cabinski that if
Majkowska remained in the company they would leave it the very next
day.
Cabinski fled, but he next ran into Stanislawski and Krzykiewicz who
told him the same with the addition that they would not remain a day
longer with him for they were ashamed to be in a company where such
public scandals occurred.
The director almost went crazy, for he was not prepared for such a
thing. He tried to squirm out of it as best as he could, made
promises, gave orders on the treasurer to all who wanted them and,
spying Janina called aloud to her with the object of mollifying
somewhat his previous conduct: "If you want something from the
treasurer, 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 wry
face but gave it to her and immediately ran off to Pepa, but on the
way he was again tackled by that amateur and his cousin and things
began to grow so noisy behind the scenes that the public listened
uneasily, wondering what was the matter.
The performance was concluded amid the silence of the audience; not
one handclap sounded.
Janina, on leaving the box office with the money, met Niedzielska
hobbling slowly along.
She stopped and wanted to greet her, but Niedzielska looked at her
threateningly and barked: "What do you want, you! you!" She coughed
violently, threatened Janina with her cane with which she supported
herself, and dragged herself on.
Janina unconsciously looked about her, to see if she could spy
Wladek anywhere, but he had already vanished. She had not seen him
since that morning.
Wladek purposely avoided her, for he had reached the decisive
conclusion that it was better to have intercourse only with ordinary
women, for with them it was not necessary to restrain one's self, to
pretend, and to be continually forced to take everything into
account. Moreover, Janina had made a fiasco as an actress and
continued to be nothing but a chorus girl, and his mother had
threatened to disinherit him because of her.
Janina gazed for a long time after the old woman, who, no doubt, was
going to seek her son, and then she went slowly home.