e did not contradict him, for
he was entirely indifferent to her. She felt a deep contempt for
him, but could not break with him entirely because there still
lingered deep down in her consciousness a memory of the happy hours
they had spent together. She treated him coldly and did not let him
kiss her, but she could not tell him outright that he was a
scoundrel, for he was, in a way, the last link uniting her strange
soul with the world.

Janina had grown frightfully thin. Her complexion became pale and
unhealthy, and from her enlarged glassy eyes there looked forth a
dreadful and constant hunger! She walked about the theater like a
shadow, apparently quiet and calm, but with that feeling of
unceasing hunger mercilessly tearing her within and with despair in
her face.

There were whole days when she had not a bite of food, when she felt
a painful emptiness in her head and heard only one thing echoing
through her brain: "If I could only get something to eat! Something
to eat!" Aside from that one desire, everything vanished from her
mind and had no importance.

A similar poverty existed throughout the whole company. The women
shifted as best they could, but the men, particularly the more
honest ones, sold everything they possessed, even their wigs, to
save themselves.

With what terror they awaited each evening! "Are we going to play
to-night?" This whisper could be heard all over the theater: in the
dressing-rooms, behind the scenes, in the restaurant-garden where
the autumn wind frolicked, and on the deserted veranda, where the
waiters, vainly waiting for guests, repeated it. It was also
repeated by Gold, who sat huddled in his box office, shivering with
cold.

An oppressive silence reigned in the dressing-rooms. The funniest
jokes of Glas could not chase the clouds of worry from the brows of
the actors. They became careless in their make-up and none of them
learned their roles, for everybody was waiting in dread suspense for
the performance and every now and then going to the box office and
asking in a whisper: "Are we going to play to-night?"

Cabinski presented a new play every day, but he could not draw the
public. He gave The Trip Around Warsaw and The Robbers, and still
the house was empty. They played such curtain-raisers as Don Cesar
de Bazan, The Statue of the Commander, and The Fortune Teller of La
Voisin, but the theater remained as deserted as ever.

"For goodness' sake, what do you want?" the di