The Comedienne Part 22

"Very well. . . . Is your daughter already started?"

"Excellently. You can convince yourself immediately. . . . Nurse, bring Yadzia here!" called Cabinska.

They pa.s.sed into the next room in which stood the director's bed, a few packs and baskets, and an old rattle-box of a piano.

Janina heard Yadzia play and agreed that she would give her lessons regularly between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, when her parents were not at home.

"When are you to make your first appearance at the theater?" asked Cabinska.

"To-day, in the Gypsy Baron."

"Have you a costume?"

"Miss Falkowska promised to loan me one."

"Come with me. . . . Perhaps I'll find something for you. . . ."

They went into the room where the children slept with the nurse.

Cabinska pulled out of a package a fairly well-preserved costume and gave it to Janina.

"You see, mademoiselle, we furnish the costumes, but since the members of the company prefer to have their own, because ours, of course, cannot be so very elegant, ours often lie here unused. . . .

I will loan you this one."

"I also will have my own."

"That is best."

They took leave of each other very cordially and the nurse carried Janina's costume after her to the hotel.

With such pa.s.sionate eagerness did Janina antic.i.p.ate her first appearance on the stage, that she arrived at the theater when there was hardly anyone as yet behind the scenes. The chorus girls a.s.sembled slowly and dressed even more slowly. Conversation, laughter, subdued whisperings went on as usual, but she heard nothing, so preoccupied was she with her dressing.

They all began to help her, laughing because she did not even have powder or rouge.

"What, you never powdered yourself?" they chorused.

"No . . . What for? . . ." she answered simply.

"We'll have to make her a face, for she's too pale," remarked one of them.

They rubbed her face with a layer of white cosmetic, shaded this with rouge, carmined her lips, underscored her eyes with a little pencil dipped in black pigment, and curled and pinned her hair. She was pa.s.sed on from hand to hand and given a thousand advices and warnings.

"On entering the stage look straight at the public, so that you don't trip."

"And before you enter, see that you cross yourself."

"Always enter with your right foot foremost."

"Now you look fine! . . . but do you want to appear on the stage in short skirts without wearing tights?"

"I haven't any! . . ."

All began to laugh at her embarra.s.sed look.

"I will loan you a pair," cried Zielinska. "I think they'll fit you." They treated her with undisguised favor, for they had heard that she was to teach Cabinska's daughter and that Pepa had loaned her a costume.

Janina, looking in the mirror, hardly recognized herself. It seemed as though she wore a mask, only slightly resembling her own face and with that strange expression that all the chorus girls wore.

She went downstairs to Sowinska.

"My dear madame, tell me truly, how do I look?" she begged, all excited and flushed.

Sowinska scrutinized her from all sides and, with her finger, spread the rouge more thoroughly on her cheeks.

"Who gave you that costume?" she asked.

"Madame Directress loaned it to me."

"Oh! something must have melted her today!"

"She told me such sad stories. . . ."

"The actress! . . . if she only played that way on the stage there would be no better in the world."

"You must be joking, madame! . . . She told me about Lwow and her past."

"She's a liar, that old hag! She was then the sweetheart of some hussar and made such scandals that they turned her out of the theater. What was she at the Lwow theater? . . . a chorus girl only.

Ho! ho! those are old tricks. . . . We all know them here long since!"

"Tell me how I look?" asked Janina at length.

"Beautiful. . . . I'll wager they'll all be chasing after you!"

An increasing nervousness seized Janina. She walked up and down the stage, peered through the hole in the curtain, viewed herself in all the mirrors, and then tried to sit still and wait, but could not endure it. The feverish excitement and nervousness attendant upon a first appearance shook her as with the ague. She could not stand or sit still for a single moment.

It seemed as though she did not see the people, the preparations that were going on about her, the lights, or even the stage itself, but only had in her brain the reflection of a confused and moving ma.s.s of eyes and faces. At each moment she would gaze with terror at the audience and feel as though her heart were ceasing to beat.

When the bell rang for the second time, she hurried off the stage and took her place in the chorus that was already a.s.sembled behind the scenes; while waiting for the moment to enter, she unconsciously crossed herself, and her whole body trembled so violently that one of the chorus girls, noticing her confusion, took her by the arm.

"Enter!" shouted the stage-director. The throng carried her along with it and pushed her to the front of the stage.

The sudden silence and magnified glare of light restored her senses somewhat, and after leaving the stage she stood behind one of the scenes and completely regained her composure.

On her second entrance she felt only a slight tremor. She sang, heard the music, and gazed straight at the public. She was also emboldened by seeing the editor sitting in the front row and encouraging her with a friendly smile. She kept looking at him and after that she was able to distinguish with increasing clearness individual faces in the audience.

In some scene in which the chorus promenaded about the back of the stage, while a comic dialogue was going on at the front, Janina's companions indulged in whispered conversations.

"Brona, look! Your fellow is there in the third row toward the left."