e hurried out, angrily slamming the door after him.

"Oh, what a scoundrel! What a scoundrel! and I belong to such a
man . . . I! They are jackals, not human beings, jackals! Wherever
one turns there is mud and filth!"

And so great grew Janina's indignation, that she cried almost aloud
through her tears: "Base wretches! wretches! wretches!"

Soon afterwards, Wladek returned bringing with him the powder, a
bottle of whisky and a package of sandwiches. He eyed Janina
curiously and looked about the room.

"The counselor was here!" she flung at him harshly.

The actor laughed cynically and exclaimed in a barroom jargon, "I
cornered him. Now we can have a little feast."

Janina was about to tell him how base he was, but suddenly there
rang in her ears those words: "Be good! Forgive!"

She restrained herself and began to laugh, but so harshly and so
long that she fell upon the bed and, tossing about on it, began to
repeat amid that dreadful, hysterical laughter: "Be good! Forgive!"

After a week's intermission there began again for Janina her former
hard life and an even harder battle, because now it had become a
struggle for mere daily bread.

She sang, as before, in the chorus, dressed as a chorus girl, peered
through the curtain at the public, whose attendance at the theater
was decreasing every day, strayed about the stage and the
dressing-rooms during the intermissions, and listened to the
whispered conversations, the music, and the quarrels. But how
different now were her thoughts and her feelings, how different now
and unlike her former self was Janina!

She no longer sought in the eyes of the public enthusiasm and love
of art, nor did she cast challenging glances at the front rows of
seats, for poverty had taught her how to estimate from the stage the
size of the audience and from it to draw deductions as to the
proportionate size of her salary. Poverty taught her to take
covertly from the storeroom the bread that was often used on the
stage and to eat it on the way home; frequently this was her entire
daily sustenance. No one admired her now, or escorted her home; nor
did she contend with anyone about art.

Kotlicki had completely vanished, the counselor was angry at Janina
and kept away from the theater, while Wladek spoke with her only at
times and visited her ever more rarely, offering as his excuse his
mother's growing weakness and the need of being with her.

Janina knew that he was lying, but sh