"you can give the role toNicolette … your wife agrees to it."
"Very well, my dears, very well. … "
He went out on the veranda where Nicolette was already seated with a young gentleman, very fastidiously dressed.
"We request your presence at the rehearsal, Miss Nicolette. … "
"What are you rehearsing?" asked Nicolette.
"Nitouche … why, don't you know that you are to appear in the title role? … I have already advertised it in the papers."
Kazckowska, who had at that moment entered and was looking at them, hastily covered her face with her parasol, so as not to burst out laughing at the comical look of embarrassment on Nicolette's face.
"I am too indisposed at present to take part in the rehearsal," she said, scrutinizing Cabiniski and Kaczkowska.
Evidently she suspected some ruse, but Cabinski, with the solemnest mien in the world, handed her the role.
"Here is your part, madame. … We begin immediately," he said, going away.
"But Mr. Director! my dear Director, I pray you, go on with the rehearsal without me! … I have such a headache that I doubt I could sing," she pleaded.
"It can't be done. We begin immediately."
"Oh, please do sing, Miss Nicolette! I'm crazy to hear you sing!" begged the squire.
"Director!"
"What is it, my soprano?"
And the directress appeared, pointing to Janina who was standing behind the scenes.
"A novice," answered Cabinski.
"Are you going to engage her?"
"Yes, we need chorus girls. The sisters from Prague have left, for they made nothing but scandals."
"She looks rather homely," opined Mrs. Cabinska.
"But she has a very scenic face! … and also a very nice, though strange voice."
Janina did not lose a word of this conversation, carried on in an undertone; she had also heard the chorus of praise that went up on the directress's appearance, and later, the chorus of derision. She gazed with a bewildered look on that whole company.
"Clear the stage! clear the stage!"
Those standing on the stage hastily moved back behind the scenes, for at the moment the entire chorus rushed out in a gallop: a throng of women, chiefly young women, but with painted faces, faded and blighted by their feverish life. There were blondes and brunettes, small and tall, thin and stout a motley gathering from all spheres of life. There were among them the faces of madonnas with defiant glances, and the smooth, round faces, expressionless and unintelligent, of peasant girls. And all were boredly cynical, or, at least, appeared so.
They began to sing.
"Halt! Start over again!" roared the director of the orchestra, an individual with a big red face and huge mutton-chop whiskers.
The chorus retired and came back again with heavy step, carrying on a sort of collective can-canade, but every minute there was heard the sharp bang of the conductor's baton against his desk and the hoarse yell—"Halt! Start over again!" And swinging his baton he would mutter under his nose: "You cattle!"
The chorus rehearsal dragged on interminably. The actors, scattered about in the seats, yawned wearily and those who took part in the evening's performance paced up and down behind the scenes, indifferently waiting for their turn to rehearse.
In the men's dressing-room Wicek was shining the shoes of the stage-manager and giving him a hasty account of his mission to Comely Street.
"Did you deliver the letter? … Have you an answer?"
"I should smile!" and he handed Topolski a long pink envelope.
"Wicek! … If you squeal a word of this to anyone, you clown, you know what awaits you!"
"That's stale news! … The lady said just that, too. Only she added a ruble to her warning."
"Maurice!" called Majkowska sharply, appearing at the door of the dressing-room.
"Wait a minute. … I can't go with only one shoe shined, can I!"
"Why didn't you have the maid shine them?"
"The maid is always at your service and I can't get a single thing from her."
"Well, go and hire another."
"All right, but it will be for myself alone."
"Nicolette, to the stage!"
"Call her!" cried Cabinski from the stage to those sitting around in the chairs.
"Come, Maurice," whispered Majkowska. "It'll be worth seeing."
"Nicolette, to the stage!" cried those in the chairs.
"In a moment! Here I am … " and Nicolette, with a sandwich in her mouth and a box of candy under her arm, rushed for the stage entrance with such violence that the floor creaked under her steps.
"What the devil do you mean by appearing so late! This is a rehearsal … we are all waiting," angrily muttered the conductor of the orchestra. .
"I am not the only one you are waiting for," she retorted.
"Precisely, we are waiting only for you, madame, and you know we have not come here to argue. … On with the rehearsal!"
"But I have not yet learned a single line. Let Kaczkowska sing … that is a part for her!"
"The part was given to you, wasn't it? … Well, then there's no use arguing! Let us begin."
"Oh, director! Can't we postpone it till this afternoon? Just now, it … "
"Begin!"
"Try it, Miss Nicolette … that part is well adapted to your voice. … I myself asked the director to give it to you," encouraged Mrs. Cabinska with a friendly smile.
Nicolette listened, scanning the faces of the whole company, but they were all immobile. Only the young gentleman smiled amorously at her from the chairs.
The conductor raised his baton, the orchestra began to play, and the prompter gave her the first words of her part.
Nicolette, who was noted for never being able to learn her role, now tripped up in the very first line and sang it as falsely as possible.
They began over again; it went a little better, but "Halt," as they called the conductor, intentionally skipped a measure, causing her to make an awful mess of it.
A chorus of laughter arose on the stage.
"A
