Chapter VII (1)

Janina awoke at about half-past ten in the morning. Sowinska had just brought in her breakfast.

"Was anyone here to see me? . . ." she asked.

Sowinska nodded her head and handed Janina a letter.

"About an hour ago a ruddy fellow delivered it and asked me to give it to you."

Janina nervously tore open the envelope and immediately recognized the handwriting of Grzesikiewicz:

"My Dear Miss Orlowska,

I have purposely come to Warsaw to see you on a very important matter. If you will kindly deign to be home at eleven o'clock I shall be there at that hour. Please pardon my boldness. Allow me to kiss your hands and remain

Your humble servant,

GRZESIKIEWICZ."

"What's going to happen? . . ." thought Janina, dressing hastily. "What kind of important matter can it be that he writes of? Concerning my father? . . . Can it be that he is ill and longing for me? . . . Oh no! No!"

She quickly drank her tea, tidied her room and patiently awaited Grzesikiewicz's visit. The thought of seeing, at last some one of her own people from Bukowiec even filled her with a certain joy.

"Perhaps he will propose to me again?" Janina thought to herself. And she saw his big weather-beaten face, bronzed by the sun, and those blue eyes gazing so mildly from beneath his shock of flaxen hair. She remembered too, his embarrassed shyness.

"A good, honest man!" she said to herself, walking up and down the room; but then the thought occurred to her that his visit was likely to spoil her intended trip to Bielany, and her enthusiasm began to cool. She determined she would speak to him briefly.

"I wonder what he wants of me?" Janina asked herself uneasily, assuming the most impossible things.

"My father must be very sick and wants me to come to him," she answered herself.

She stood in the center of the room almost dazed, with fear that she must return to Bukowiec.

"No, it is impossible! . . . I couldn't stand it there a single week . . . and moreover, he drove me away from home forever . . ."

A chaotic conflict between hate, sorrow, and a quiet, scarcely perceptible feeling of homesickness began to rage in Janina's heart.

The bell rang in the anteroom.

Janina sat down and waited quietly. She heard the door opening, the voices of Grzesikiewicz and Sowinska, and the sound of an overcoat being hung up.

"May I come in?" asked a voice outside.

"Please do," she whispered, choking with trepidation as she arose from her chair.

Grzesikiewicz entered. His face was even more sunburnt than usual and his blue eyes seemed bluer. He walked stiffly and erectly like a petrified block of meat squeezed into a tight surtout with difficulty. He almost threw his hat upon a basket standing near the door and, kissing Janina's hand, said quickly: "Good morning . . ."

He straightened himself, scanned her face with his eyes and sat down heavily in a chair.

"I had a hard time finding you . . ." he began, and suddenly broke off. Then, as if to bolster up his courage, he attempted to shove aside a chair that interfered with his actions but pushed it so hard that it fell over.

He sprang up, all red in the face, and began to apologize.

Janina smiled, so vividly did that impulsive action remind her of their last talk and that unfortunate proposal. And for a moment it seemed to her that it was now that he was to propose and that they were sitting in the quiet parlor at Bukowiec. She could not explain to herself the impression that he made on her with that honest face, worn by suffering, and with those bright blue eyes which seemed to bring with them echoes of those beloved fields and woods, those quiet glens, that golden sunlight and the free and bounteous life of nature. For one fleeting moment her mind dwelt on all this, but at the same time there awoke memories of all her sufferings and her banishment.

She handed him a box of cigarettes and said in an easy tone, breaking the somewhat prolonged silence: "You give proof of no small courage and . . . kindness by visiting me after all that has happened. . . ."

"Do you remember what I told you the last time," he answered, subduing and softening his voice, "that I would never and always! . . . That I would never cease and would always continue to love you!"

Janina moved impatiently, for his deeply sincere accent pained her.

"I beg your pardon . . . if it makes you angry, I will not say another word about myself . . ." he said with resignation.

"What is the news from home?" she asked, raising her eyes to his.

"How can I tell you? . . . It's something that beggars all description. You would not know your father; he has become an impossible autocrat in his official duties, and outside of them he goes hunting, visits his neighbors, whistles to himself . . . but has become so thin and worn that it is hard to recognize him. Worry is eating him away like a canker."

"Why? . . . What is there for my father to worry about?"

"My God! How can you ask such a question? Are you joking, or haven't you a spark of feeling in you? . . . Why is he worrying? . . . Because you are away . . . because he, like all of us, is dying with longing for you! . . ."

"And what about Krenska? . . ." Janina asked with apparent calmness, although stirred deeply by what he had told her.

"What has Krenska to do with this? . . . He threw her out the very next day after your departure, afterwards received a few days' official leave from his duties and left Bukowiec. . . . In about a week he returned so woebegone and haggard that we scarcely recognized him. Even strangers are crying over him, but you had no pity on him and went forth into the world . . . and what kind of world, besides? . . ."

Janina sprang up violently from her chair.

"Yes, you may be angry with me if you will, but I love you, I love you too well, and we all love you too well to be denied the right to speak what we feel. Have me thrown out of here if you will, and I'll not complain, but I'll wait for you at the street door or meet you anywhere else and keep telling you that your father is dying without you and that he is growing sicker and weaker every day! My mother came across him not so long ago in the woods: he was lying in some bushes and crying like a child. You are killing him. Both of you are killing each other with your pride and unrelenting stubbornness. You are the best woman in the world and I feel that you will not leave him alone, that you will return and give up theatrical life. . . . Aren't you ashamed of associating with such a band of scoundrels? . . . How can you possibly exhibit yourself on the stage! . . ."

He broke off and breathing heavily, wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. Never before had he said so much at one time.

Janina sat with bowed head, her face as pale as a sheet, her lips set tightly and her heart filled with a storm of rebellion and suffering. That sharp voice which she had just heard had in it such a tearful, deep and soul-stirring expression and those words: "Your father is suffering . . . your father is crying . . . your father is longing for you!" penetrated her with so sharp a grief and harried her so painfully, that at moments she wanted to spring up and go to him as quickly as she could; but then again, memories of the past would flood her brain and she would become cool and hardened. Finally she recalled the theater and became entirely indifferent.

"No! He has driven me away forever. . . . I am alone in the world and will remain alone. I could not live without the theater!" Janina said to herself and there arose in her again that mad desire for theatrical conquest.

Grzesikiewicz also became silent, his eyes clouding mistily. He devoured her with his eyes, and had a great desire to fall on his knees before her, kiss her hands and feet and the hem of her dress and beg her to listen to him . . . Then again, when he remembered the whole tragedy of the situation, he felt like springing up from his chair and smashing everything that came in his way; or again such a violent grief would convulse him that he could have cried aloud in sheer despair.

He sat and gazed at that beloved face, now pale and worn, on which the feverish night life of the theater had already left its imprint, and he felt that he would give his very life for her, if she would only go back.

Janina finally bent on him eyes that were glowing with irrevocable determination.

"You must know how my father hates me; you must also know that, when I refused to marry you, he drove me out of his house forever . . . he almost cursed me and drove me out . . ." she repeated with bitterness. "I left because I had to, but I will never return. I will not exchange the freedom of the theater for slavery at home. Things happened as they did because they had to. My father told me at that time that he had no longer a daughter, and I now answer that I have no longer a father. We have parted and will never be reunited again. I am entirely able to shift for myself, and art will suffice me for everything."

"So you will not return?" asked Grzesikiewicz, for that was all he understood of her words.

"No! I have no home and I will not forsake the theater!" replied Janina in a calm voice, regarding him coolly, but her pale lips trembled a little and her bosom throbbed violently, convulsed by the conflict within.

"You will kill him . . . he loves you so . . . he will not outlive such a blow . . . ." said Grzesikiewicz gently.

"No, Andrew, my father does not love me. A person whom you love you do not torment for whole years at a time and then drive away from home like the worst. . . . Even a dog does not turn its young ones out . . . even an animal never does what was done to me!"

"I have seen and know how bitterly he regrets those reckless words and how hard it is for him to live without you. I swear that you will make him happy by returning! That you will restore him to life!"

"Did he tell you that he desired me to return to Bukowiec? Perhaps he has given you a letter for me? Please tell me the whole truth!" she spoke rapidly.

Grzesikiewicz hesitated in confusion and became even sadder.

"No. He neither said anything about it, nor gave me a letter for you," he answered, lowering his voice.

"So that is how much he loves me and how greatly he longs to see me? Ha! ha! ha!" she laughed harshly.

"Don't you know him yet? He will die of thirst rather than beg a glass of water. When I was leaving and told him where I was going, he did not say a word, but looked at me in such a way and gripped my hand so firmly that I understood him entirely. . . ."

"No, you did not understand him at all. My father is not at all concerned about me; he is only concerned over the fact that the whole neighborhood must be speaking about my departure and my joining the theater. . . . Surely, Krenska must have left no stone unturned. . . . He is concerned only about the gossip that is circulating. He feels disgraced through me. He would like to see me broken and begging forgiveness at his feet. That is what he is anxious about!"

"You do not know him! Such hearts . . ."

Janina hastily interrupted him: "Let us not speak of hearts where on one side they do not at all enter into the question, where they are entirely lacking and there is only an insane . . ."

"So then? . . ." he asked rising, for he was choking with a spasm of anger.

The bell in the hall rang sharply, evidently pulled violently by someone.

"I will never return," said Janina with final determination.

"Janina . . . have mercy . . ."

"I do not understand that word," she answered with emphasis, "and I repeat: never! unless it be . . . after I am dead."

"Don't say that, for . . ."

He did not finish for the door suddenly swung wide open and Mimi with Wawrzecki came rushing in.

"Well, are you coming? Hurry and dress yourself, for we start immediately! . . . Ah, I beg your pardon, I did not know you had a visitor," cried Mimi, observing Grzesikiewicz who took his hat, bowed automatically, and, without looking at anyone, whispered.

"Good-bye."

And without more ado he left.

Janina sprang up as though she wished to detain him, but Kotlicki and Topolski were just then entering and greeted her jocularly. After them came some third person.

"What sort of broad gentleman was that? As I live, it is the first time that I saw such a mass of meat in a surtout!" cried that third comer.

"This is Mr. Glogowski. In a week we are to present his play and in a month he will be famous throughout Europe!" said Wawrzecki, introducing him.

"And in three months my fame will reach Mars with all its appurtenances! . . . If you are going to bluff, at least let it be a good bluff" laughed Glogowski.

Janina greeted them all, and in a subdued voice answered Mimi who was asking her about Grzesikiewicz: "An old friend of mine and former neighbor, a very honest man . . ."

"He must be flushed with money, that youth . . . he looks it!" exclaimed Glogowski.

"Yes, he is wealthy. His family owns the largest sheep-growing ranch in Congressional Poland . . ."

"A shepherd! . . . he rather looks as though he were a keeper of elephants! . . ." jested Wawrzecki.

Kotlicki only smiled and discreetly observed Janina.

"Something must have happened here . . . for her voice shows she is deeply moved," he thought. "Perhaps that was her former lover? . . ."

"Come, hurry, for Mela is waiting downstairs in a hack," cried Mimi impatiently.

Janina dressed hastily and they all went out together.

They rode to the bank of the Wisla and from there took a boat to Bielany.

All were in a springtime humor, except Janina. She sat gloomily rapt in thought.

Kotlicki chatted jovially, Wawrzecki jested with Glogowski and the women took part in the merriment, but Janina hardly heard a thing that was being said. She was still pondering her conversation with Grzesikiewicz and the heavy feeling it had left in her heart.

"Is anything troubling you?" Kotlicki asked with anxiety in his voice.

"Me? Oh nothing! . . . I was just musing upon human misery," she answered.

"It is not worth thinking of anything that is not pleasure, full of life and youth . . ."

"Don't complete that nonsense. It is just as if you were to eat off the butter on a piece of bread and then muse over your dry crust that you did a foolish thing after all," interposed Glogowski, "I see you do not like to eat, only to lick at things."

"My dear sir, I have the honor of knowing that ever since I was a schoolboy," Kotlicki retorted sarcastically.

"That isn't the point; the point is that you advocate downright silly things. For instance indulgence, while you have had ample opportunity to prove upon yourself the sad results of that jolly theory."

"Both in life and in literature you are always paradoxical."

"I'll wager you have weak lungs, arthritis, neurasthenia and . . ."

"Count up to twenty."

They began to argue vehemently and then to quarrel.

The boat had passed the railroad bridge and the vast calm of the open country enveloped them on all sides. The sun was shining brightly, but a chill dampness arose from the murky waters of the river. The small waves, saturated with light, like serpents with gleaming scales, splashed about in the sunlight. The long sand dunes resembled water giants, basking in the sun with yellow upturned bellies. A string of scows floated before them; the pilot in a small cockleshell boat rowed on in front and every now and then would raise his voice in a cry which echoed across the water and reached them in a confused medley of tones. A few boatmen plied their oars with automatic motion and their sad song was wafted to the party and floated above their heads. Afterwards a growing silence began to spread around them.

The mild verdure of the shores, the sunlit trail of the waters gleaming with the sheeny softness of satin, the gentle rocking of the boat, the rhythmical stroke of the oars unconsciously imposed a silence upon everybody.

"I will not return!" thought Janina, automatically repeating those words, while she gazed upon the blue expanse of waters and pursued with her eyes the waves that fled swiftly on before her, "I will not return!"

She felt that loneliness was embracing her with ever wider arms and surrounding her soul with an emptiness into which she gazed defiantly. Her sorrow, the thought of her father and Grzesikiewicz, all her former acquaintances and her whole past seemed to be flowing on far behind her so that she saw them dimly in the distant gray mist and only the faint echo of an entreaty or of weeping seemed to reach her now and then.

No! she would not have the strength to turn back and swim against that current that was bearing her onward. Nevertheless, she felt that tears were dropping upon her heart and burning it with bitterness.

They disembarked at the landing-stage at Bielany and began to wind their way up the hill.

Janina walked ahead of the company with Kotlicki who did not leave her for a moment.

"You owe me a reply," he said after a while, assuming a tender expression.

"I answered you yesterday, and to-day you owe me an explanation," she said harshly, for now, after that recent conversation with Grzesikiewicz and all that it had cost her, she felt an almost physical aversion and hatred toward Kotlicki; he struck her as repulsive and brazen.

"An explanation? . . . Can one explain love or analyze a feeling? . . ." he began, uneasily biting his thin lips. He did not like the tone of her voice.

"Let us be sincere, for what you told me is . . ." she cried impulsively.

"Is sincerity itself."

"No, it is only a comedy!" Janina retorted sharply and felt a great desire to strike him in the face.

"You offend me! One can believe a person's feelings without sharing them," he said in a quieter tone so that those who followed them would not hear.

"Now please listen to what I have to say! I want to tell you that your comedy not only wearies me, but is beginning to anger me. I am still too little a hysterical actress and too much a normal woman to take pleasure in such acting. I was never taught by my mother, the secret code of a woman's conduct toward a man, nor did they warn me of man's falsehood and baseness. I observed that quickly enough for myself, and see it every day behind the scenes. You think that to every woman who is in the theater you can boldly talk about your love as though it were some trifle, in the hope that perhaps she will swallow your bait! Actresses are so playful and so silly, aren't they?" she said with stinging scorn. "Would you dare to tell me the same, if I were at home? No, you wouldn't dare tell me you loved me, if you didn't, for there, I would be a woman in your eyes, while here I am only an actress; for there, I would have behind me a father, mother, brothers or some convention which would prohibit you from many things. But here, you don't hesitate. And why? Because here I am alone and an actress, that is a woman to whom you can with impunity tell lies, whom you can with impunity possess and then cast off and go your way without the slightest fear of losing your reputation. Oh, you can be sure, Mr. Kotlicki, that I will not become your mistress, nor any other man's if I do not love him! I have already thought much, too much, about the matter to be deceived by fine phrases!" She spoke rapidly, and her sharp words fell like blows.

He trembled with impatience and gazed on her in amazement. He did not know her, and had not assumed for a moment that he would find an actress who would tell him such things to his face. He gazed at her through half-closed eyes, and stammered ever more frequently, so immensely did he like her for her courage. She fascinated him by her strength of character and honesty, for by those words she had spoken, by her face which faithfully reflected all her inner feelings, and by the sincere tones of her voice he began to perceive that she was an honest and uncommon girl; and in addition she was so beautiful!

"The whip was rawhide with leaden weights at the end of it. You beat with a womanly fury both the guilty and the innocent," said Kotlicki, and seeing that Janina did not answer he added after a while, "Is this not enough for you? If it would be possible during that entire flagellation to kiss your hands, I beg you to continue . . ."

"Kotlicki! . . . Wait a minute there and help us carry the baskets! . . ." called Wawrzecki.

The men carried the baskets with the provisions, while the whole company walked along the steep river bank, seeking a convenient spot for a camping ground.

All about them the lonely wood rustled softly with its young oak leaves and juniper bushes. They halted under a grove of verdant oaks. Behind them was the woodland solitude while beneath them the Wisla gleamed in the sunlight and murmured with its blue waves breaking against the shore.

After the preliminary drinks and sandwiches all became lively.

"Well, now let us drink the health of the initiators of the outing!" cried Glogowski, filling the glasses.

"Let us rather drink to the success of your new play," cried several voices.

"No, that will not help it any . . . it will turn out a fiasco anyway . . ."

"Perhaps Topolski will now reveal to us his secret plan," said Kotlicki who was calmly stretched out on his plaid beside Janina.

"Let that rest! After we have had plenty to eat and still more to drink will be time enough. Perhaps the ladies will untie those packages," cried Wawrzecki.

Napkins were spread out on the grass and a variety of dainties was brought forward and set upon them amid laughter.

"That's nice, but where is the tea?" exclaimed Janina.

Kotlicki jumped up.

"The tea is here and also the samovar, only you, sir, will have to go for some water. We shall go together for it to the Wisla!" cried Majkowska, shaking the charcoal out of a pitcher.

Kotlicki frowned a bit, but went along with her. In a few minutes the samovar was started, Glogowski proving himself a real master.

"That is my specialty!" he shouted blowing at the fire like a pair of bellows. "And I must tell you ladies that very often, more often than I like, I lack coal. It is then that my inventive genius comes to the fore: I stoke the fire with papers or, if that is also missing, I pluck a board from the floor and, willy nilly, the tea is produced."

"You must lead a very diversified life!" remarked Topolski with a laugh.

"A trifle! Just a trifle . . . but I won't say that I relish it."

"I proclaim to all in general and to everyone in particular that the tea is beginning to boil! . . . Now, ladies, assume the roles of Hebes!" called Glogowski.

Janina poured out the tea for all of them before sitting down near Mimi.

"I am organizing a dramatic society," began Topolski.

"I will tell you the only way to do it: you engage a few score of the theatrical tribe by promising them high salaries and give them small advances; you look for a lady treasurer who is wise enough to have a bond and naive enough to deposit it; with it you buy the necessary accessories, have them sent on account and you are ready either to begin, or to break up. And in two months you can repeat the same prescription until you get results," jested Wawrzecki.

"Wawrzecki, quit your confounded nonsense!" cried the irritated Topolski, drinking one glass of brandy after another. "That kind of company any idiot can organize, any Cabinski. I don't want a band of players who will scatter to the four winds as soon as someone lures them with the promise of a big advance, but a strong organization with a well-defined plan, an organization as solid as a stonewall!"

"You often broke up companies yourself and yet you think you can manage actors? . . ." persisted Wawrzecki.

"I am sure of it. Listen all! This is how I would go about it: condition one--about five thousand rubles to begin with; I fish out of all the companies their best forces, thirty persons at most; I pay them moderately but honestly; I assure dividends . . ." "Come now, you had better give up dreaming about dividends!" growled Kotlicki.

"There will be a dividend! there must be!" cried Topolski with growing enthusiasm. "I select my plays: a series of typical and classical things; these will be the walls and foundations of my edifice; furthermore, all the more important novelties and all the folkplays, but away with operetta, away with clownishness, away with the circus, away with everything that is not true art! I want to have a theater and not a puppet show! artists are not clowns!" he cried in an ever louder voice.

Topolski began to cough so violently that all the veins in his neck swelled like whipcords. He coughed for a long time, then took a drink of brandy and began talking again, but in a quieter and slower voice, without looking at anyone, or seeing anything beyond this dream of his whole life, which he related in short and tangled sentences.

Kotlicki, who was not stirred even for a moment by that speech full of inspiration as well as illogicality, remarked: "You are a little late. Antoine in Paris has long ago put into practice what you propose; those are his ideas . . ."

"No, those are my ideas, my dreams; for twenty years already I am carrying them within me!" cried Topolski, growing suddenly livid as though struck by lightning, and gazing in a dazed way at Kotlicki.

"What of that, when others have already partially realized those dreams and given them their name . . ."

"Thieves! they have stolen my idea! they have stolen my idea!" shouted Topolski and fell over half-senseless on the grass, covering his face with his hands, sobbing convulsively and stammering in a drunken voice: "They have stolen my idea! . . . Help! they have stolen my idea!" And he continued to roll about on the grass, sobbing like a grieved child.

"Not because of the fact that that idea is already known do I see the impossibility of realizing such a project," began Glogowski calmly, "but because our public has not yet reached the point where it is ready for such a theater and does not feel the need of such a stage. In the meanwhile, give them the farce full of acrobatic stunts and leg-shows, a half-naked ballet, cancan howling, a little, cheap kitchen sentimentality, a heap of empty phrases on the subject of virtue, morality, the family, duty, love, and . . ."

"Count up to twenty . . ." laughed Kotlicki.

"Just as is the public, so are its theaters; one is worth as much as the other!" remarked Majkowska.

"He who wants to rule the multitude and rule over it, must flatter it and do that which the multitude wants; he must give it that which it needs; he must first be its slave so that he may later become its master," said Kotlicki slowly and with unction.

"I will say: no! I neither want to cringe to the mob, nor be its master; I prefer to go my own way alone . . ." answered Glogowski emphatically.

"A splendid standpoint! From it you can laugh at everyone to your heart's content."

"Miss Janina, please let me have some tea!" cried the already irritated Glogowski, springing up violently, throwing his hat at a tree and feverishly rumpling his sparse hair.

"You are ever a fiery radical of native breed," said Kotlicki with a good-natured irony.

"And you are a poor fish, a seal, a whale . . ."

"Count up to twenty!"

"Those are fine arguments, indeed! . . . Here is a much better one," cried Wawrzecki, handing Glogowski his cane.

Glogowski calmed himself, gazed around a moment and began drinking his tea.

Majkowska was listening silently, while Mimi, stretched out on Wawrzecki's overcoat, was fast asleep.

Janina was serving tea to all and did not lose a word of that conversation. She had already forgotten about Grzesikiewicz, about her father, and about her talk with Kotlicki, and was entirely engrossed by the questions that were now being discussed, while Topolski's dreams fascinated her by their fantasies. Such general discussions on art and artistic subjects absorbed her entirely.

"What about your dramatic society?" she asked Topolski who was just raising his head.

"It will be . . . it must be formed!" answered Topolski.

"I warrant you it will be," interposed Kotlicki, "not the kind that Topolski desires but that which will be the best within the bounds of possibility. It will even be possible to introduce certain improvements by way of variety and attraction, but we shall leave the reformation of the theater to someone else; for that you would need hundreds of thousands of rubles and you would have to start it in Paris."

"The reformation of the theater will not originate with the managers, and as for dramatic creativity, what is it really? . . . The seeking of something in the dark, a dog-like scenting about, an aimless straying, or the antics of a flea. A genius must arrive to revolutionize the modern theater; I already have a feeling that one is coming . . ." asserted Glogowski.

"How is that? . . . Aren't the existing masterpieces of the drama sufficient for creating an ideal theater?" queried Janina.

"No . . . those masterpieces belong to the past; we need other works. For us those masterpieces are a very important archeology," answered Glogowski.

"So in your estimation Shakespeare is antiquated?"

"Sh! let us not speak of him; he is the whole universe; we can merely contemplate him, but never understand him . . ."

"And Schiller?"

"A Utopian and classic: an echo of the Encyclopedists and the French Revolution. He represents nobility, order, German doctrinarianism and pathetic and wearisome declamation."

"And Goethe?" ventured Janina, who had developed a great liking for Glogowski's paradoxical definitions.

"That means only Faust, but Faust is so complicated a machine that since the death of the inventor no one knows how to wind it or start it going. The commentators push its wheels, take it apart, clean it, and dust it, but the machine will not go and already is beginning to rust a little. . . . Moreover, it is a furious aristocracy. That Mr. Faust is first of all not the ideal type of man, but an experimenter; he is nothing but the brain of one of those learned rabbis who spend their whole lives on pondering whether it is proper to enter the synagogue with the right or the left foot first; he is a vivisector, who, after breaking the heart of Margaret in the process of his experimentation, and fearing the threat of imprisonment, and being unable by virtue of his shortsightedness to see anything beyond his study and his retorts, makes a sport of complaining and laments that life is base and knowledge is worthless. In truth, it requires a great deal of genuinely German arrogance to maintain when you have a catarrh that everybody else has it or ought to have it."

"I prefer such merry works to your wise plays," whispered Kotlicki.

"Oh, and what of Shelley and Byron?" begged Janina, whose interest was fully aroused.

"I prefer foolishness even when it presumes to speak rather than when it seeks to create something" Glogowski hastily flung back at Kotlicki.

"Aha, Byron! . . . Byron is a steam engine producing a rebellious energy; a lord who was dissatisfied in England and dissatisfied in Venice with Suiciolla, for although he had a warm climate and money he was bored. He is a rebel-individualist, a strong, passionate monster; a lord who is always seething with fury and using all the forces of his wonderful talent to spite his enemies. He slapped England's face with masterpieces. He is a mighty protestant out of boredom and in his own personal interest."

"And Shelley?"

"Shelley again, is a divine lingo for the public of Saturn; he is the poet of the elements and not for us mortals."

Glogowski became silent and went to pour himself some tea.

"We are still listening; at least, I am waiting with impatience for you to continue your very interesting exposition," exclaimed Janina.

"Very well, but I am going to skip over a great many immortals so as to finish sooner."

"You can continue on the condition that you'll do so without tinkling the bells and beating the tambourine."

"Kotlicki, keep quiet! You are a miserable philistine, a typical representative of your base species and you are denied a voice when human beings are speaking!"

"Gentlemen, please quit your arguing, for I can't sleep," pitifully pleaded Mimi.

"Yes, yes, it isn't at all amusing!" added Majkowska with a mighty yawn.

Wawrzecki began again to fill the glasses. Glogowski moved close to Janina and began enthusiastically to expound to her his theory.

"Ibsen makes a strange impression on me; he foreshadows someone mightier than himself who is yet to come; he is like the light of dawn before the rising sun. And as regards the newest, over-praised and over-advertised Germans: Suderman and Company they are merely a loud prating about small things; much ado about nothing. They wish to convince the world for instance that it is unnecessary to wear suspenders with your trousers, because you can sometimes wear them without suspenders."

"So we have finally got to the point where there are no more left to dispose of," interposed Kotlicki. "One got a whack over the head, another a jab in the ribs, a third a very polite kick and so forth . . ."

"No, my dear sir, I still remain!" rejoined Glogowski, with a comical bow.

"We demolished vast edifices for the sake of a soap bubble."

"Perhaps, but since even in soap bubbles the sun is reflected . . ."

"Therefore, let us have another drink of brandy!" exclaimed Topolski, who had been silent up till now.

"Throw out all that argumentation to the dogs! . . . Let us drink and quit thinking!" chimed in Wawrzecki.

"That last statement is an epitome of yourself, Wawrzecki!" remarked Glogowski.

"Let us drink and love one another!" proposed Kotlicki, rousing himself and tinkling his glass against the bottle.

"To that I will agree, as I am Glogowski, I will agree, for love alone is the soul of the world!"

"Wait a minute, I will sing you something about love," cried Wawrzecki, and he proceeded to drone an amorous ditty.

"Bravo Wawrzecki!" cried the entire company and with that they all abandoned themselves to pure merriment, ceased arguing and babbled any nonsense that came to their lips.

"Most esteemed ladies and gentlemen! the sky is beginning to cloud and on earth the bottles are all empty. Let us beat a retreat!" finally suggested Wawrzecki.

"But how?" chorused a few voices.

"We will go on foot, for it is not more than a mile to Warsaw."

"We'll hire some husky fellow to carry the baskets for us. I'll go and see if I can find someone," said Wawrzecki, and he went off in the direction of a monastery.

Before he returned all were ready for the homeward journey. The general mood of gayety had even risen, for Mimi was dancing a waltz with Glogowski on the greensward. Topolski was so drunk that he continually kept talking to himself and quarreling with Majkowska. Kotlicki smiled and kept close to Janina who had become very sportive and merry. She smiled at him and conversed with him, hardly remembering his recent proposal. He was sure that the impression of it had merely glided over her soul and sunk away in forgetfulness.

They walked in disordered groups as is usual after an outing. Janina was weaving a wreath of oak leaves, while Kotlicki was helping her and amusing her with piquant remarks. She listened to him, but when they entered into a bigger and real wood where the ground was covered with dense underbrush, she suddenly became grave, gazed at the trees with such great joy, touched their trunks and branches with such tenderness, her lips and eyes glowed with such rapture, that Kotlicki asked her, pointing to the trees: "No doubt they must be good friends of yours?"

"Yes indeed, good and sincere friends and not comedians!" she replied with a light irony in her voice.

"You have a very vengeful memory. You neither believe, nor forgive. I desire only one thing: to be able to convince you . . ."

"Then marry me!" she exclaimed quickly, turning towards him.

"I beg for your hand!" he murmured in the same tone.

They glanced straight into each other's eyes and both suddenly became gloomy. Janina knitted her brows and began unconsciously to tear her unfinished wreath with her teeth, while Kotlicki bowed his head and became silent.

"Come, let us hurry, we shall be late for the performance!" called someone, and they hastened to catch up with the rest of the company.

"So to-morrow there is to be a read rehearsal of my play?" Glogowski was asking Topolski.

"To be exact, it will be only a reading of the play itself, for Dobek has not yet finished writing out the roles," answered Topolski.

"Great Scott! and when do you expect to present it?"

"Don't fear, the Philistines will hiss and hoot you soon enough, without your hurrying!" Kotlicki twitted him.

"We shall present it in a week from next Tuesday . . . at least I would have it so," replied Topolski.

"Or, strictly speaking, there will remain for rehearsals and for the learning of the roles only four days. No one will know his part, no one will be able to master it even passably in so short a time. That's nothing short of murder, cold-blooded murder!" cried Glogowski.

"You'll treat Dobek to a few whiskeys and he will safely pull the play through for you," suggested Wawrzecki.

"Yes, he will shout for everybody. . . . As the matter stands, it is best to announce that there will take place merely a reading of the play."

"You needn't worry about me, I'll learn my role," Majkowska assured him.

"And I also," added Janina.

"I know the ladies always know their parts but the men . . ."

"The men will play their parts well without having to learn them," remarked Wawrzecki. "Don't you know that Glas never studies his roles! A few rehearsals familiarize him with the situations of the play and the prompter does the rest."

"That's why he plays so splendidly!" sneered Glogowski.

"What do you want? He's a good actor and not at all a bad comedian."

"Yes, because he always knows how to improvise some nonsense with which to cover up his bungling."

"Please give me an entirely serious answer. Were those last words of yours only a joke or were they an expression of your wishes and a condition?" Kotlicki again whispered to Janina as a certain idea entered into his head.

"Every variety is good, providing it is not wearisome. Have you heard that before?" answered Janina impatiently.

"Thank you! I will remember it. . . . But do you know this: patience is the first condition of success."

Kotlicki glanced at her quizzically, bowed to her with his head, and retired among the rest of the company. He possessed a brazen self-confidence and decided, at all events, to wait.

Kotlicki was not one of those whom a woman can drive away from herself with scorn or even with insults. He accepted everything and carefully stored it away in his memory for a future reckoning. He was a man who had a contempt for women, who told people what he thought to their very faces, and who always craved women and love. He ignored the fact that he was ugly, for he knew he was rich enough to buy any woman that he might desire. He belonged to that category of men which is ready for anything.

He now walked along smiling at some thought that was in his mind, and striking with his cane the weeds that were in his path.

It grew dark and the rain began to fall in large drops.

"We will get drenched like chickens!" laughed Mimi, opening her parasol.

"Miss Janina, my umbrella is at your service," called Glogowski.

"Thank you very much, but as far as I am able, I do not use any protection against the rain; I just dote on getting wet in the rain."

"You have the instincts of . . ." he broke off suddenly and pressed his hand to his mouth with a comical gesture.

"Finish what you began to say . . . please do . . ."

"You have the instincts of fish and geese. . . . I am curious to know how they have developed in you."

Janina smiled, for she remembered her old autumn and winter tramps through the woods in the greatest storms and rainfalls, and she answered merrily: "I like such things. I am used from my childhood to endure rains and rough weather . . . I am simply wild about storms."

"My, what fiery blood! It must be something atavistic."

"It's merely a habit or an inner need which has grown to the proportions of a passion."

Glogowski offered his arm to Janina; she accepted and began to relate to him in an easy, friendly tone the various adventures she had experienced on her excursions in the country. She felt as unrestrained in his company as though she had known him from childhood. At moments she would even forget that this was the first time in her life that she had met him. She was won over to him by his bright and happy face and by the somewhat mild sincerity of his character; she felt in him a brotherly and honest soul.

Glogowski listened to her, answered her questions, and observed her with curiosity. Finally, choosing an appropriate moment, he said frankly: "May the deuce take me, but you are an interesting woman, a very interesting one! I will tell you something; just now a certain thought struck me and I offer it to you hot from the griddle, only don't think it strange. I detest conventionality, social hypocrisy, the affectation of actresses, etc., count up to twenty! . . . and that is just what I fail, as yet, to see in you. Oho! I immediately noticed that you were free from all that. Frankly, I like you as a certain type that one meets very rarely. It is interesting, interesting!" he repeated, almost to himself. "We might become friends!" he cried delightedly, speaking his thoughts aloud, "For, although women always disappoint me, because sooner or later the female of the species crops out in every one of them, still, a new experiment might be worth something . . . ."

"Frankness in return for frankness," said Janina, laughing at the lightning-like swiftness with which he formed determinations. "You also are an interesting specimen."

"Well, then, we agree! Let us shake and be good friends!" he exclaimed, extending his hand.

"But I haven't yet finished what I wanted to say: I must tell you that I do without confidants and friends entirely. That smacks of sentimentality and is not very safe."

"Bosh! Friendship is worth more than love. I see it's beginning to pour in earnest. It is the dogs crying over rejected friendship. I shall have the opportunity of meeting you more often, shall I not? For you have within you something . . . something like a piece of a certain kind of soul that one comes across very rarely."

"I am at the theater every day for rehearsals and almost every day at the performances."

"Oh the deuce take it, that won't do at all! If I attended on you for only once a week, it would give rise to so much gossip, twaddle, surmises."

"Oh I don't care what people say about me!" Janina laughed with an easy air.

"Ho! ho! I see you are of the fighting variety . . . a regular gamecock! I like a person who treats with scant ceremony that old rag called public opinion."

"I think that as long as I have nothing to reproach myself with, I can listen calmly to what they say about me."

"Pride, a capital pride!"

"Why don't you bring out your play in the Warsaw Theater?"

"Because they did not want to produce it. That, you see, is a very elegant and highly perfumed establishment and only for a very delicate and subtly feeling public, while my play does not smell a bit of the salon; at the most, it smells of the fields, a little of the woods and a trifle of the peasant's hut. There they want, not truth, but flirtation, conventionality bluffing, etc., count up to twenty. Moreover, I had no backing, and they already have their patented play manufacturers."

"I thought it was only necessary to write something good and they would immediately produce it."

"Great Scott! No! . . . quite the reverse is true. Just look how much I must bear before even such as Cabinski presents my play! . . . Now raise that to the fourth power and only then will you have some conception of the joys of a beginning comedy writer, who, in addition, does not know how to secure patronage for his plays."

They became silent. The rain fell incessantly and was already forming big puddles of water along the road. Glogowski gazed gloomily at the city whose towers appeared outlined upon the misty horizon.

"A base city!" he grumbled angrily. "For three years I have vainly been trying to conquer it. I am struggling and killing myself, and yet, not even a dog knows me."

"If you keep on telling them that they are base knaves and fools you will never conquer them."

"I will. They will not love me, to be sure, but they will have to reckon with me, they must! However, such citadels are most easily stormed by actors, singers, and dancers. They make a clean sweep of everything with only one appearance."

"But their triumph is only for a day. After they have left the stage all trace of them is lost like that of a stone cast into the water!" said Janina with a certain bitterness, gazing fixedly at the ever nearer appearing, crowded walls of Warsaw. Only at that moment did she realize that the fame of which she dreamed was merely the fame of a day.

"It seems to me that you have an appetite for the same thing that I have," remarked Glogowski.

"I have!" she answered with emphasis and her voice resounded with the explosive force of something that had been long pent up.

"I have!" she repeated, but this time in a much quieter tone and without enthusiasm. The light died away in Janina's eyes and they strayed aimlessly over those heights of the city in the distance, without understanding anything, for she was perturbed by the thought of that ephemeral fame, for she remembered the faded wreaths of Cabinska and the bygone fame of Stanislawski, for she was thinking with growing bitterness of those thousands of famous actors who were dead and whose names even were forgotten. Janina felt a distressing conflict of feelings in her breast. She leaned more heavily on Glogowski's arm and walked on without saying another word.

At Zakroczymska Street they took a hack; Kotlicki jumped in and went along with them, forming a party of three. Janina eyed him angrily, but he pretended he did not notice it and gazed at her with his everlasting smile. Glogowski and Kotlicki accompanied her to her home. She had only enough time left to rush into the house, change her dress, take the things she needed and immediately start off again for the theater.

Because of the rain a few of the other chorus girls were also late. Cabinski, expecting an empty house on account of the weather, was irritated and rushed up and down the stage, shouting to all those who were entering: "I see you girls are getting lazy. It is already past eight o'clock and not one of you is yet dressed."

"We have been attending vespers at the Church of St. Charles of Borromeus," explained Zielinska.

"Don't try to fool me with vespers! The deuce with vespers! Tend to that which gives you your bread!"

"You provide us so generously with it, Mr. Director!" angrily retorted Louise.

"What, I don't pay you? What else do you live on?"

"What do we live on? . . . Certainly not your absurd and merely promised salaries!"

"Oh, and you are also late?" he cried to Janina who was just entering.

"I appear only in the third act, so I still have plenty of time."

"Wicek! go run and get Miss Rosinska. Where is Sophie? Hurry up and begin! May the devil take you all!" shouted Cabinski growing exasperated.

He peered through the slit in the curtain.

"The theater is already filled, by God, and not a soul is, as yet, in the dressing-rooms! Afterwards they complain that I don't pay them! Gentlemen! for God's sake, hurry and get dressed and begin!"

"Right away, as soon as we finish this game."

A few undressed actors with their make-up half-completed were playing a game of poker. Stanislawski alone sat in a corner of the dressing-room before his mirror and was making up his face. Already for the third time he was rubbing off the paint with a towel and making up anew. He gymnasticated his mouth, contracted his brows in anger, puckered his forehead and cast all sorts of glances. He was rehearsing a character and with each change of his physiognomy, he mumbled beneath his breath the corresponding parts of his role, only now and then tossing in the direction of the card players a ten-copeck piece and two words: "A four . . . ten coppers!"

"The public is starting a rumpus! It's time to ring and begin!" pleaded Cabinski.

"Don't disturb us, Director. Let them wait. . . . A trump! . . . Shell out the coin!"

"A jack . . . you pay!"

"A queen of hearts . . . hand over five shekles!"

"All's ready! Stake something on Desdemona, Director," cried one of the players, shuffling and stacking the cards.

"She will betray me!" hissed Cabinski.

"Doesn't she betray you anyway?"

"Ring!" shouted Cabinski to the stage-director, hearing a stamping of feet in the hall.

For a few minutes nothing was heard but the rustling of cards, falling with lightning-like rapidity upon the table.

"Four aces . . . you're done for!"

"Shell out!"

"A jack!"

"A five . . . that's good. I'll at least make something."

"A queen of hearts."

"Have some consideration for the ladies!" persisted Cabinski.

"A queen of spades. Shell out!"