Thursday and
rehearsals of it were to be held every afternoon, for Glogowski had
earnestly requested that and generously treated the entire cast each
day to get them to learn their roles well.

A few days after receiving her first role Janina's first month at
Sowinska's expired. The old woman reminded her of it in the morning,
asking for the money as soon as possible.

Janina gave her ten rubles, solemnly promising to pay the balance in
a few days. She had only a few rubles left of her entire capital.
She thought in astonishment how she had spent the two hundred rubles
which she had brought with her from Bukowiec.

"What am I going to do?" Janina asked herself, determining as soon
as possible to ask Cabinski for her overdue salary.

She did so at the very next rehearsal.

"I haven't the money!" cried Cabinski at once. "Moreover, I never
pay beginners in my company for the first month. It's strange that
no one informed you about that. Others are already here a whole
season and they don't bother me about their salaries."

Janina listened in consternation and finally said frankly: "Mr.
Director, in a week's time I will not have a penny left to live on."

"And that old . . . counselor . . . can't he give it to you? . . .
Surely, everyone knows that . . ."

"Oh, Mr. Director!" whispered Janina, blushing deeply.

"A pretty deceiver!" he muttered with a cynical twist of his lips.

Janina forcibly suppressed her indignation and said: "In the
meantime I need ten rubles, for I must buy myself a costume for the
new play."

"Ten rubles! Ha! ha! ha! That's great! Even Majkowska does not ask
for so much at one time! Ten rubles! what delightful simplicity!"
Cabinski laughed heartily and then, turning to go, he said: "Remind
me of it this evening and I will give you an order to the
treasurer."

That evening Janina received one ruble.

Janina knew that the chorus girls even after the most profitable
performance received only fifty copecks on account and usually only
two gold pieces or forty groszy. Only now, did she recall those sad
and worn faces of the elder actresses. There were revealed to her
now many things that she had never seen before, or seeing them, had
never understood. Her own want opened wide her eyes to the poverty
that oppressed everyone in the theater and those hidden daily
struggles with it that they often disguised under a glittering veil
of gayety.

That daily standing before the treasurer's windo