The Comedienne Part 63

Day began to dawn and flood the room with its drab and gray light, but Janina still sat on the same spot, gazing blankly out of the window, with deeply sunken eyes and whispering with lips blackened by fever: "What am I going to do? What am I going to do?"

CHAPTER XI

The season ended. Cabinski was leaving for Plock with an entirely new company, for Topolski had taken away his best forces and the rest had scattered among various companies.

In the pastry shop on Nowy Swiat, Krzykiewicz, who had broken with Ciepieszewski, was organizing a company of his own. Stanislawski was also starting a small company on a profit-sharing basis. Topolski was already preparing his company for its trip to Lublin.

The local garden-theaters were all closed for the season and a deathly silence reigned over them. The stages were boarded up and the dressing-rooms and entrances locked. The verandas were strewn with broken chairs and rubbish. The autumn leaves fluttered from the trees and torn sc.r.a.ps of programs of the last performances rustled about sadly in the breeze. The season was over.

n.o.body visited the theater any more, for the migratory birds were preparing for their flight, only Janina from force of habit, still would come here, gaze a moment at the deserted haunts and return again.

Cabinska wrote her a very cordial letter, inviting her to her home.

Janina went there and found that they were already packing up for their journey. Immense trunks and baskets stood in the middle of the rooms, a large pile of various stage paraphernalia together with mattresses and bedding lay on the floor the entire outfit of a nomadic life.

In Cabinska's room, Janina no longer found either the wreaths or the furniture, or the canopied bed; there shone only the bare walls with the plaster broken here and there by the hasty removal of pictures and the pulling out of hooks. A long basket stood in the middle of the room and the nurse, perspiring from her exertion, was packing into it Pepa's wardrobe. Cabinska, with a cigarette in her mouth, directed the packing and continually scolded the children, who were tumbling in great glee over the mattresses and the straw strewn about the packages.

She greeted Janina with exaggerated cordiality and said: "There is such a dust in here that it is unbearable. Nurse, be careful how you pack, so that you don't crush my dresses. Let us go out on the street," she said to Janina, putting on her coat and hat.

She pulled Janina along to her pastry shop and there, over a cup of chocolate, began to apologize to her for the discourtesy that Cabinski had shown her at the box office.

"Believe me, the director was so excited that he really did not know what he was saying. And can you wonder at it? He was giving his best efforts and even p.a.w.ning his personal effects, only that the company might lack nothing and, in the meanwhile, along comes Topolski, creates a rumpus and breaks up his company. Even a saint would lose patience in those circ.u.mstances and, moreover, Topolski told my husband that you were going to join his company."

Janina answered nothing, for she was now entirely indifferent toward the whole matter, but when Cabinska told her that on that very afternoon they were leaving for Plock and that she should immediately pack her things, for the expressman would call for them directly, she answered with decision: "Thank you for your kindness, Mrs. Directress, but I shall not go."

Cabinska could scarcely believe her ears and cried out in amazement: "Have you already secured an engagement and where?"

"Nowhere, nor do I intend to," answered the girl.

"How is that! Are you going to abandon the stage? You who have a big future before you!"

"I have had more than enough of acting," answered Janina with bitterness.

"Come now, don't reproach me with it, you know it's your first year on the stage and they wouldn't give you big roles at once, anywhere."

"Oh, I am no longer going to try for them."

"And I had already been planning that in Plock you would live together with us and that would not only make it easier for you, but my daughter also could derive more benefit from it. Please think it over and I, on my part, a.s.sure you that you will also get roles."

"No, no! I have enough of poverty and have absolutely no more strength left to bear it any further and, moreover, I cannot, I cannot . . ." answered Janina quietly, with tears in her eyes, for that proposal flashed before her mind like the dawn of a better future and awakened for a moment her old enthusiasm and dreams of artistic triumph. But immediately she thought of her present condition and the sufferings that she would have to endure on that account, so she added with even greater emphasis: "No, I cannot! I cannot!"

But she could not hold back the tears which continued to stream quietly down her face until even Cabinska was touched and, drawing nearer to her, whispered with sincere sympathy, "For G.o.d's sake what is the matter with you? Tell me, perhaps I shall be able to help you."

In reply Janina blushed faintly, warmly clasped Cabinska's hand, and hastily left the pastry shop.

Tears were stifling her; life was stifling her.

Immediately afterward Stanislawski came to Janina and urged her to leave with him for the small provincial towns. He was organizing a company of from eight to nine persons in which each was to hold a share. He offered Janina leading roles and spoke in glowing terms of the certain success that awaited them in the provincial towns. He enumerated all those whom he was engaging: all young people and novices, full of energy, zeal, and talent. And he promised himself that he would lead them along the path of true art, that his company would be in the nature of a school for drama and that he would be a real teacher and father, who would make of these people true artists worthy of the theater and its traditions.

Janina refused Stanislawski briefly. She thanked him heartily for the kindness he had shown her during the summer and took leave of him cordially, as though forever.

When he had gone, she determined finally to end it all. She had not yet told herself decisively: "I will die!" So far, if someone had told her that she was contemplating suicide she would have denied it sincerely, but already that thought and desire were lurking in the subconscious depths of her mind.

Janina knew when the Cabinskis were leaving, so she went down to the steamboat landing. She stood upon the bridge and watched them steam away. She gazed at the gray waves of the Wisla splashing against the sides of the pier and at the distant horizon veiled in autumn mists, and such an intense sadness and grief overwhelmed her that she could not move from the spot, or tear her eyes away from the water.

Night fell and Janina still stood there, gazing before her. The rows of lights on the river banks sprang up from the darkness like golden flowers and dotted the rocking, greenish surface of the water with quivering gleams. The din and hum of the city echoed dimly behind her, the hacks sped with noisy clatter across the bridge, the bells of the tramcars clanged incessantly, crowds of people pa.s.sed by with laughter; sometimes the echo of a song reached Janina, or the merry tones of a hand organ, then again, a warm breath of wind, saturated with the raw odor of the river, fanned her feverish face. All these sights and sounds beat against her as against a lifeless statue and rebounded again without making any impression on her.

The water in its depths began to pa.s.s through ever stranger transformations: it turned black, but that blackness was interwoven with gleams of light, flames of red, streaks of violet, and rays of yellow, like the glowing flame of pain. There, in those silent depths, there seemed to be a better and fuller life, for the waves murmured so joyously, broke against the piers and stone bulwarks and, as though with frenzied laughter, united again, blended, tumbled over one another and flowed on. Janina seemed almost to hear their care free laughter, their calling to one another and their voice of mighty joy.

"What are you doing here?" suddenly said a voice behind her.

Janina trembled and turned around slowly. Wolska was standing before her and curiously and uneasily watching her.

"Oh, nothing, I was just gazing about."

"Come with me, the air here isn't healthy," said Wolska, taking Janina by the arm, for she read in her dimmed eyes a suicidal intent.

Janina allowed herself to be led away and only after they had gone some distance, she asked quietly, "So you have not left with Cabinski?"

"I couldn't. You see, my Johnnie's health is again worse. The doctor has forbidden me to move him from bed and I believe that it would kill him," whispered Wolska sadly. "I had to stay, for, of course, I can't send him to the hospital. If it comes to the worst, we shall die together, but I will not forsake him. The doctor still gives me some hope that he will recover."

Janina gazed with a strange feeling at the face of Wolska which, though worn and faded, beamed with a deep motherly love. She looked like a beggar woman in her dark, stained cloak and gray dress, frayed at the bottom; she wore a straw hat and black mended gloves and carried a parasol which was rusty from continual use. But through all this poverty there shone, as bright as the sun, her love for her child. She saw and heeded nothing else, for all that did not concern her child had no meaning for her.

Janina walked alongside of her, gazing with admiration at this woman. She knew her story. Wolska was the daughter of a rich and intelligent family. She fell in love with an actor, or else with the theater itself, and went on the stage and, although later her lover abandoned her and she suffered poverty and humiliation, she could not tear herself away from the theater and now, she centered all her love and all her hopes upon her child that had been seriously ill since the spring.

"Where does she get all her strength?" thought Janina and then, turning to Wolska, she asked: "What are you doing now?"

Wolska shuddered, a faint blush flitted over her worn face and her lips quivered with a painful expression as she answered: "I sing . . . What else could I do? I must live and must earn enough to pay Johnnie's doctor bills. I must. Although it fills me with shame to do it, I must. Alas, such is my fate, such is my fate!" she moaned complainingly.

"But I don't know what you mean," said Janina, who could not understand why Wolska should feel ashamed to earn a living by singing.

"Because, you see, Miss Janina, I don't want anybody to know about it. . . . You will keep it to yourself, won't you?" she begged with tears in her eyes.

"Certainly I give you my word. Moreover, whom would I tell? . . . I am all alone in the world."

"I sing in a restaurant on Podwal St.," said Wolska in a low and hurried voice.

"In a restaurant!" whispered Janina, standing stock-still in amazement.

"What else could I do? Tell me, what else could I do? I need money for food and rent. How else could I earn it, when I don't even know how to sew? At home I knew how to play on the piano a bit and could speak a little French, but of course, that would not bring me a penny now. I saw an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Courier for a singer, so I went there and got the position. They pay me a ruble a day together with meals and . . ." but tears choked her voice and she grasped Janina's hand and pressed it feverishly. Janina returned the hand-clasp with a similar one and they walked on in silence.

"Come along with me, won't you? It will make me feel a little more at ease," said Wolska.

Janina willingly agreed.

They entered the restaurant "Under the Bridge" on Podwal St. It was a long and narrow garden with a few miserable trees. At the very entrance there was a well. A whitewashed fence on the left side of the garden divided it from the neighboring property which must have been a lumberyard, for piles of beams and boards could be seen looming above the fence. A few kerosene lanterns illuminated the place. A number of little white tables with varnished tops and around them three times that number of rough-hewn chairs const.i.tuted the entire furnishings of that summer restaurant. A small office on the ground floor and the top of the neighboring house enclosed the right side of the garden, while at the back there arose a high, rough brick wall with small, dirty, and barred windows; it was the rear of the former Kochanowski Palace, standing on the corner of Miodowa and Kapitulna Streets.

Near the fence, a small stage shaded by a canvas roof with its two open sides facing toward the audience, formed a sort of niche, the walls of which were covered with a cheap, blue paper dotted with silver stars. The smoking kerosene footlights on one side of the stage cast a drab light upon a musician with a disheveled gray beard and grease-stained coat, who was pounding away at the keyboard of a wretched piano with an automatic motion of his arms and head.