. . ."
he shouted.

He seized a glass from one of the racks and hurled it to the floor.

Quickly Pepa intercepted him and screened the dishes with her body.

"Get out of the way!" he growled threateningly, clenching his fists.

"These are mine!" she cried and threw the whole heap of dishes at
his feet with such force that they broke into little bits.

"You cow!"

"You fool!"

"Please ma'am, let me have the money for breakfast," said the maid,
at that instant entering.

"Let my husband give it to you!" answered Cabinska, and with a proud
stride, went into the next room, slamming the door after her.

"Let me have the money, sir. It's late and the children are crying!"

He laid a ruble on the table, brushed his top hat with his sleeve
and departed.

The nurse took a pitcher and a basket for rolls and went out.

The Cabinskis had no more time to think of their household than of
their children, and cared for nothing, absorbed entirely by the
theater, their roles, and their struggle for success. The canvas
walls of the stage scenes and decorations representing elegant
salons and interiors sufficed them entirely; there they breathed
more freely and felt better. In the same way a canvas scene
depicting some wild landscape with a castle on the summit of a
chocolate-colored hill and a wood painted below sufficed them as a
substitute for real fields and woods. The smell of mastic,
cosmetics, and perfume were to them the sweetest odors. They merely
came home to sleep, their real home, where they lived habitually,
was on the stage and behind the scenes.

Cabinski had been in the theater some twenty years, playing
continually, and still, he desired each new role for himself and
envied others.

Pepa never took account of anything, but listened only to her
momentary instinct and sometimes to her husband. She doted on the
melodrama, on strained and nerve-thrilling situations; she liked a
sweeping gesture, an exalted tone of voice, and glaring novelties.
Her pathos was often of the exaggerated variety, but she played with
fervor. A certain play, or some accent or word would move her so
deeply that even after leaving the stage she would still shed real
tears behind the scenes.

She knew her parts better than anyone else, for she would memorize
them with mechanical precision. For her children she cared about as
much as for her old dresses: she bore them and left them to the care
of her husband and the nurse.

Immedia