was holding his hand to his hat, smiling in a conventional manner.
"Just let me look a moment … " he said.
Janina moved away a bit.
He glanced through the slit in the curtain and relinquished her place to her.
"Pardon me, pardon me for disturbing you … " he said.
"Oh, I've looked all I wanted to, sir … " she answered.
"Not a very interesting sight, is it? … " he queried. "The most authentic Philistia; trade-mongers and shoemakers. … Perhaps you think, madame, that they come to hear, and admire the play? Oh, no! … they come here to display their new clothes, have supper, and kill time. … "
"Well then, who does come for the play itself?" she asked.
"In this place, no one. … At the Grand Theater and at the Varieties … there, perhaps, you may yet find a group, a very small group who love art and who come for the sake of art alone. I have often touched upon that matter in the papers."
"Mr. Editor, let me have a cigarette!" called an actor from behind the scenes.
"At your service." He handed the actor a silver cigarette-case.
Janina, moving away, gazed with admiration at the writer, delighted with the opportunity of observing such a man at close range.
How many times in the country while listening to the everlasting conversations about farming, politics, rainy and clear weather, she had dreamed of this other world, of people who would discourse to her of ideals, art, humanity, progress and poetry, and who impersonated in themselves all those ideals.
"You must not be very long in this company for I have not had the pleasure of seeing you before … "
"I was engaged only to-day."
"Have you appeared elsewhere before?"
"No, never on the real stage. … I took part only in amateur theatricals."
"That is the way nearly all dramatic talent develops. I know … I happen to know … Modrzejewska herself often mentioned that fact to me," he remarked, with a condescending smile.
"Mr. Editor … do your duty!" called Kaczkowska, extending her hands.
The editor buttoned her gloves, kissed each of her hands a few times, received a slap on the shoulder in reward and retreated to the curtain where Janina was standing.
"So this is your first appearance in the theater? … " he asked. "No doubt it's a case of the family opposing … inflexible determination on your part … the isolation and dullness of the countryside … your first appearance as an amateur … stage fright … success … the recognition of the divine spark within yourself … your dreams of the real stage … tears … sleepless nights … a struggle with an adverse environment … finally, consent … or perhaps a secret escape in the night … fear … anxiety … going the rounds of the directors … seeking an engagement … ecstasy … art … godliness!" he spoke rapidly, telegraphically.
"You have almost guessed it, Mr. Editor … it was the same with me," said Janina.
"You see, mademoiselle, I knew so from the first. It's intuition that's all! I'll take care of you, upon my word! … I'll insert a little item about you in our next issue. Later, give a few details under a sensational headline, next, a longer article about the new star on the horizon of dramatic art," he sped on. … "You will sweep them off their feet … the directors will tear you away from each other, and in about a year or two … you will be in the Grand Theater at Warsaw! … "
"But, Mr. Editor, no one knows me; no one, as yet, knows whether I have talent … "
"You have talent, my word! My intuition tells me that. … Do not believe the testimony of the senses, mademoiselle, hold yourself aloof from all reasoning, throw to the dogs all calculations, but do not fail to believe intuition! … "
"Come here, editor … hurry!" called someone to him.
"Au revoir! au revoir!" he said, throwing a kiss to Janina and touching the brim of his hat as he disappeared.
Janina arose from her seat, but that same intuition which he had advised her to heed, told her not to take his words seriously. He seemed to her a light-headed individual given to hasty judgments. That promise of notices and articles in the papers and his extravagant praises of her talent seemed to her merely insincere twaddle. Even his face, gestures, and manner of speaking reminded her of a certain notorious braggart living in the vicinity of Bukowiec.
The second act of the play commenced.
Janina looked on, but it did not carry her away as the first had done.
"How do you like our theater? … " asked the brunette chorus girl, whom she had met in the dressing-room.
"Very well!" answered Janina.
"Bah! the theater is like a plague; when it infects anyone, you might as well say amen! … " whispered the brunette, her voice hard.
Behind the scenes, in the almost dark passages between the decorations there was a great number of people. The actors stood in the passages and certain pairs were crouched in the darkness; whispers and discreet laughs sounded on all sides.
The stage-director, an old, bald man without a collar and dressed only in a vest, with a scenario in one hand and a bell in the other, ran up and down at the back.
"To the stage! You enter immediately, madame! … enter!" he cried all perspired and flushed, and ran on again, gathered from the dressing-rooms those who were needed on the stage, and at the appropriate moment whispered: "Enter!"
Janina saw how the actors suddenly interrupted their conversations, left each other in the midst of some sentence, stood down half-empty glasses, and rushed for the entrances, waiting for their turn, immovable and silent or nervously whispering the words of their roles, and entering into their characters; she saw the quivering of lips and eyelids, the trembling of legs, the sudden paleness beneath the layer of paint, and the feverish glances of stage fright …
"Enter!" sounded a voice like the crack of a whip.
Almost everyone started violently, hastily assumed the required facial expression, crossed himself a few times and went on.
Each time the stage door opened a thrill went through Janina at that wave of strange fire, that streamed toward her from the public.
She began again to lose herself in the play. That mysterious gloom, those garish hues and forms, emerging from the shadows and suddenly flooded with light, the strains of invisible music, the echo of singing, the sound of subdued footfalls and strange whispers in the darkness, the feverish rapture of the public, the glowing eyes, the excitement, the thundering applause, like a far-away storm, streams of dazzling light alternating with darkness, the throng of people, the pathetic ring of words, tragic cries, heart-rending sobs, moans, weeping, a whole melodrama, pompously and noisily acted all this filled Janina with a fervor different from the one she had felt in the first act, the fervor of energy and action. She went through the playing with all the actors, suffered together with those paper heroes and heroines, feared with them and loved with them; she
