. . . Help! they have
stolen my idea!" And he continued to roll about on the grass,
sobbing like a grieved child.

"Not because of the fact that that idea is already known do I see
the impossibility of realizing such a project," began Glogowski
calmly, "but because our public has not yet reached the point where
it is ready for such a theater and does not feel the need of such a
stage. In the meanwhile, give them the farce full of acrobatic
stunts and leg-shows, a half-naked ballet, cancan howling, a little,
cheap kitchen sentimentality, a heap of empty phrases on the subject
of virtue, morality, the family, duty, love, and . . ."

"Count up to twenty . . ." laughed Kotlicki.

"Just as is the public, so are its theaters; one is worth as much as
the other!" remarked Majkowska.

"He who wants to rule the multitude and rule over it, must flatter
it and do that which the multitude wants; he must give it that which
it needs; he must first be its slave so that he may later become its
master," said Kotlicki slowly and with unction.

"I will say: no! I neither want to cringe to the mob, nor be its
master; I prefer to go my own way alone . . ." answered Glogowski
emphatically.

"A splendid standpoint! From it you can laugh at everyone to your
heart's content."

"Miss Janina, please let me have some tea!" cried the already
irritated Glogowski, springing up violently, throwing his hat at a
tree and feverishly rumpling his sparse hair.

"You are ever a fiery radical of native breed," said Kotlicki with a
good-natured irony.

"And you are a poor fish, a seal, a whale . . ."

"Count up to twenty!"

"Those are fine arguments, indeed! . . . Here is a much better one,"
cried Wawrzecki, handing Glogowski his cane.

Glogowski calmed himself, gazed around a moment and began drinking
his tea.

Majkowska was listening silently, while Mimi, stretched out on
Wawrzecki's overcoat, was fast asleep.

Janina was serving tea to all and did not lose a word of that
conversation. She had already forgotten about Grzesikiewicz, about
her father, and about her talk with Kotlicki, and was entirely
engrossed by the questions that were now being discussed, while
Topolski's dreams fascinated her by their fantasies. Such general
discussions on art and artistic subjects absorbed her entirely.

"What about your dramatic society?" she asked Topolski who was just
raising his head.

"It will be . . . it must be formed!" answered Topolski.