rector cried to the
public from behind the curtain.

"Do you think they themselves know what they want? If there were
three hundred people present, then another three hundred would
appear, but when there are only fifty with the addition of cold and
rain, then only twenty remain," the editor explained to Cabinski,
for of all those numerous acquaintances who used to come behind the
scenes he alone remained, the rest having dispersed with the first
rains.

"The public is a herd that does not know where it is going to graze
on the following day," said Mr. Peter, with animosity.

Oh yes, they hated that public, and yet prayed to it. They cursed
it, called it "a herd" and "cattle," threatened it with their fists
and spat upon it, but only let that public appear in larger numbers,
and they fell upon their faces before it and felt a deep gratitude
toward that capricious lady, who had a different humor each day and
each day bestowed her favors upon someone else.

"The public is a harlot! a harlot!" whispered Topolski threateningly.
"To-day she is with a monarch, to-morrow with a clown!"

"You have told the truth, but it will not give you even a ruble,"
answered Wawrzecki, whose humor still survived, but had already
become sharp and bitter, for Mimi had left the company and gone to
join another one at Posen.

Several members of the company had already left, although there
still remained a whole week till the end of the season. Especially
the choruses had almost entirely dispersed, for they suffered the
most from poverty.

The rains continued to fall in the morning, the afternoon, and the
evening. The atmosphere at the theater became unbearable. There were
draughts in the dressing-rooms, and mud covered the floors, for the
roof leaked everywhere. The cold was intense.

To Janina it seemed that this theater was slowly falling apart and
burying everyone among its ruins, while that other one on Theatrical
Place stood strong and invincible.

Its ponderous walls had grown black from the rains and it appeared
even sterner and mightier than before and filled Janina with a
pious, unexplainable awe whenever she gazed at it. It sometimes
seemed to her that this vast edifice rested its columns on piles of
corpses and that it drank the blood, the lives, and the brains of
the actors in the smaller theaters and throve and grew mighty on
them.

"I shall go mad! I shall go mad!" often whispered Janina, pressing
her burning head wit