ow that the whole nation
will flock to it as to a church festival."

"And what answer did you give to all that?"

"I? . . . Nothing, of course! I merely turned my back on them and,
since I have a splendid plan for a new play, I shall immediately
start working on it. I have received a job as a dramatic coach at
Radomsk and I shall go there for a half year. I am only waiting for
the final notification."

"Is it absolutely necessary for you to go?"

"Yes, I must! Dramatic coaching is my only means of support. For two
months I have been without any occupation and now I am penniless. I
presented the play at my own expense, paid my respects to the
public, had a good time at Warsaw and now it is time to quit! It is
time to ring down the curtain so that I may prepare for another
farce. Goodbye, Miss Janina. Before I leave, I'll drop in here or at
the theater."

He shook hands with her, exclaimed, "May the deuce take me!" and
hurried away.

Janina was sad. She had become so accustomed to Glogowski, to his
eccentricities, paradoxes, and to that rough and ready manner which
was merely a screen for his shyness and hypersensitive delicacy that
regret filled her at the thought that she was now to remain alone.

She had no more money left and was living solely on what she
received at the theater. Janina dared not admit it to herself, but
with each new request for money she would be reminded of her home
and of those times when it was unnecessary for her to think of
anything, for she had all she needed. She felt deeply humiliated by
this almost daily begging for a few meager copecks, but there was no
way out of it, unless it was the one that she constantly read in the
gray eyes of Sowinska and saw exemplified in the life of her
companions.

Almost each evening Janina would stroll on Theater Place. If she was
in a great hurry, she would only pass through the place, get a
glimpse of the Grand Theater and return home again, but if she had
plenty of time she would find a seat on the square or on a bench
near the tramcar station and from there gaze at the rows of columns,
at the lofty profile of the theater's facade and lose herself in
dreaming. She somehow felt that those walls drew her irresistibly to
them. She experienced moments of deep delight when passing under the
colonnade, or when in the calm of a bright night she viewed the long
gray mass of the edifice. That huge stone giant seemed to speak to
her and she would listen