aspirant with their glances; burning taunts and jibes began
to fall from all sides like stones upon her soul crushed by an
unexpected blow. Brutal laughs arose, scourging her as with a whip
and all the baseness of human delight in the pain of others found
its object and outlet.

And Janina stood there without a word or motion, with that dreadful
pain in her heart in which it seemed as though all the arteries had
been torn open and were flooding it with the blood of despair.

She collected enough strength to ask: "Why may I not play the part?"

"Because you may not and that settles it!" answered Cabinski curtly.
And he immediately left the theater, because he dreaded a scene and
felt a trifle sorry for Janina.

She remained standing behind the scenes with that overwhelming and
sharp pain of disappointment tearing at her soul. She felt such an
emptiness and loneliness that at moments it seemed to her as though
she were all alone in the world and that something had pinned her to
the earth with an immense weight and was crushing her down, that she
was falling with lightning speed to the bottom of some deep abyss
where a grayish-green whirlpool was dimly roaring.

Her thoughts and feelings were breaking and snapping under the
tremendous strain and tears of hopeless abandonment flooded her
eyes. She went to the dressing-room and sat down in the darkest
corner.

Her dreams were crumbling to pieces: those wonderful realms were
vanishing and sinking away in the misty distance, those enchanting
visions were waving like torn rags in her brain and soul.

The dull grayness of the dirty walls and decorations about her and
the throng of shabby, jeering beggars seemed to saturate and oppress
her whole being. She felt so utterly weary, broken, sick, and
helpless that she went out into the hall to look for Wladek to take
her home, but she could not find him. He had cautiously disappeared,
so Janina went back to the dressing-room and sat there in a daze.

"Beware of dreams! Beware of water!" she repeated to herself,
remembering with difficulty who had told her that. And suddenly,
Janina became pale and reeled back for such a chaos began to whirl
in her brain that she thought she would go mad . . . .

For a long time she sat in a senseless torpor and wept without being
able to restrain herself, for after partly regaining her
consciousness the memory of all her sufferings and disappointments
came back to her again. At last utter