o think of her father. The city, the
hubbub and bustle which engulfed her immediately upon her arrival at
the station, the weariness caused by the journey and by the last
moments at Bukowiec, and afterwards those feverish hours at the
theater, the rehearsal, the park, the waiting for evening and her
own coming rehearsal all this had so completely absorbed her that
she forgot almost entirely about home.

She dressed carefully, for she wished to appear at her best.

When she arrived at the garden-theater the lights were already
turned on and the public was beginning to assemble. She went boldly
behind the scenes. The stage hands were arranging the decorations;
of the company, no one was as yet present.

In the dressing-rooms the gaslights flared brightly. The costumer
was preparing gaudy costumes, and the make-up man sat whistling and
combing a wig with long, bright tresses.

In the ladies' dressing-room an old woman was standing under the
gaslight, sewing something.

Janina explored all the corners, examining everything, emboldened by
the fact that no one paid the slightest attention to her. The walls
behind the huge canvas decorations were dirty, with their plaster
broken off, and covered with sticky dampness. The floors, the
moldings, the shabby furniture and decorations, that seemed to her
like beggarly rags, were thick with dust and filth. The odor of
mastic, cosmetics, and burnt hair, floating over the stage,
nauseated her.

She viewed the canvas scenes of what were supposed to be magnificent
castles, the chambers of the kings of operetta, gorgeous landscapes
and beheld at close view a cheap smear of colors which could satisfy
only the grossest of senses and then only from a distance. In the
storeroom she saw cardboard crowns; the satin robes were poor
imitations, the velvets were cheap taffeta, the ermines were painted
cambric, the gold was gilded paper, the armor was of cardboard, the
swords and daggers of wood.

She gazed at that future kingdom of hers as though wishing to
convince herself of its worthiness. And, though it was sham, tinsel,
lies, and comedy she tried to see above it all something infinitely
higher--art.

The stage was not yet set, and was only dimly lighted. Janina
crossed it a few times with the stately stride of a heroine, then
again, with the light, graceful airiness of an ingenue, or with the
quick feverish step of a woman who carries with her death and
destruction; and with each