lovers together with her!"
added another voice.

"Jackals! Jackals!" cried Janina aloud, staring defiantly at them.
And she had a great desire to spit in the eyes of all those cowards,
so violent a wave of hatred surged through her and so base and cruel
did they all appear to her. She restrained herself however, and
resumed her seat, but for a long time could not calm herself.

When Janina went on the stage with the chorus, she was still
trembling and agitated and the first person she saw in the audience
was Grzesikiewicz who sat in the front row of seats. Their eyes met;
he made a motion as though he wanted to leave, while she stood
amazed for one brief instant in the center of the stage, but
immediately collected herself, for she also spied Kotlicki sitting
not far away and closely observing Grzesikiewicz and further on
Niedzielska who was standing near the stalls and smiling at her in a
friendly manner.

Janina did not look at Grzesikiewicz, but she felt his eyes upon her
and that began to add to her agitation and excitement. She
remembered that she had on short skirts and a peculiar shame filled
her at the thought that she was standing before him in these gaudy,
theatrical togs. It is impossible to describe what took place within
her. Never before had she felt like this. In her stage appearances
she usually gazed at the public with an expression of aloofness as
on a foolish and slavish throng, but to-day it seemed to her as
though she were standing in the front part of a huge cage like some
animal on exhibition, while that audience had come to view her and
amuse itself with her antics. For the first time she saw that smile
which was not on any particular face, but which, nevertheless,
hovered over all faces and seemed to fill the theater; it was a
smile of indulgent and unconscious irony, a smile of crushing
superiority that is seen on the faces of older people when they
watch the playing of children. She felt it everywhere.

Afterwards Janina saw only the eyes of Grzesikiewicz immovably fixed
upon her. She violently tore herself away from that gaze and looked
in another direction, but saw, nevertheless, how Grzesikiewicz got
up and left the theater. To be sure, she was not waiting for him,
nor did she expect to see him again, yet his departure touched her
painfully. She gazed as though with a certain feeling of
disappointment at the empty seat which he had occupied just a moment
ago and then she retreated wit