great souls, and great passions almost like those she
had dreamed of.

How much advice they gave her concerning enunciations, classical
pose, and the best manner of reciting her lines! She listened with
interest, but when she tried to play the fragment of some role
according to their instructions, she found she could not do it, and
they would then appear so stiff, pathetic and unnatural that she
began to treat them with an indulgent pity.

With Mme. Anna, Janina lived on a footing of cool politeness. With
Sowinska she was a little more intimate, for the old woman fawned
upon her as a tenant who regularly paid her rent in advance.
Sowinska was coarse and violent. There were certain days that she
would eat nothing, nor even go to the theater, but would sit locked
in her room, crying, or at moments swearing extraordinarily.

After such days she seemed even more energetic and would indulge
with greater zest in behind-the-stage intrigues. She would walk
among the audience and speak quietly with the young men who hung
about the theater. She would bring the actresses invitations to
suppers, bouquets, candy, and letters and would seek with a genuine
zeal to induce the stubborn ones to yield to the advances made to
them. She accompanied the girls as a chaperon to carousals and knew
just when to find an important reason for leaving. At such times
there would gleam under her mask of kindhearted and wrinkled old age
an expression of cruel glee.

Janina overheard once how the old woman spoke to Shepska, who had
joined the theater after being seduced by a member of the chorus.

"Listen to me, madame! . . . What does your lover give you? A home
on Brewery Street and sardines with tea for breakfast, dinner and
supper. . . . It's a shame to waste yourself on such a poor fool!
Don't you know that you could live as comfortably as you wish and
laugh at Cabinski! Why should you have scruples! . . . A person
profits by life only as he enjoys it! . . . A young and pretty girl
ought not waste herself on a penniless nobody. . . . Perhaps you
think you will the sooner get a role by remaining where you
are? . . . Oho! when pears grow on a pine tree! Only those are given
roles who have someone backing them."

Usually she accomplished her purpose, and though often offered
costly presents, seldom accepted anything.

"I don't want them. If I advise anyone, it's because I wish them
well," she would answer briefly.

Janina who had learned e