The Comedienne Part 51

"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 ma.s.saged 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 grat.i.tude 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 p.a.w.nshop 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 pa.s.s before her mind the figures of all the great lovers about whom she had read, pa.s.sionate whispers, burning embraces, volcanic pa.s.sions and that whole t.i.tanic 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 p.a.w.nshop, 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 hara.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed her on the way, hungry and desperate, hurling the same glances at other pa.s.sers-by that she did. She tried to distinguish the faces of such sufferers in the mult.i.tude, 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 mult.i.tude 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 b.u.t.terflies 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 a.s.sign 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 ent.i.tled 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 pa.s.sionate 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 Coriola.n.u.s!'" 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.