The Comedienne Part 11

"Sir," queried a spectator, holding up one of the actors by the b.u.t.ton of his coat. "Sir, are they playing something new?"

"First of all, that is a b.u.t.ton from my coat which you have pulled off!" cried the actor, "and that, my dear sir, is the first act of a moving farce ent.i.tled Behind the Scenes; it is given each day with great success."

The stage became deserted. The orchestra was tuning its instruments; "Halt" went for a drink of beer, and the company scattered about the garden. Cabinski, holding his head with both hands, paced up and down the stage like a madman, complaining half in anger, half in commiseration, for his wife was still quietly continuing her spasms.

"Oh what people! What people! What scandals!"

Janina, startled by the brutality of the spectacle she had just witnessed, retreated behind the farthermost scene. She felt that it was now impossible to speak with the director.

"So these are artists! . . . this is the theater!" she was thinking.

The rehearsal, after a short intermission, began anew with Kaczkowska as the t.i.tular heroine.

Majkowska was in a splendid humor, being so successfully rid of her rival.

The director, after his wife's departure, rubbed his hands in glee and motioned to Topolski. They went out to the buffet for a drink.

Without a doubt he must have made something on his break with Nicolette.

Stanislawski, the oldest member of the company, walked up and down the dressing-room, spitting with disgust and muttering to Mirowska, who was sitting on a chair with her feet curled up under her.

"Scandals . . . nothing but scandals! . . . how can we expect to have any success! . . ."

Mirowska nodded her a.s.sent, smiling faintly and keeping steadily on with the crocheting of a handkerchief.

After the rehearsal Janina boldly approached Cabinski.

"Mr. Director--" she began.

"Ah, it is you, miss? . . . I will accept you. Come to-morrow before the performance, and we will talk it over. I have not the time now."

"Thank you ever so much, sir!" she answered overjoyed.

"Have you any kind of a voice?"

"A voice?"

"Do you sing?"

"At home I used to sing a little . . . but I do not think I have a stage voice . . . however, I . . ."

"Only come a little earlier and we shall try you out. . . . I shall speak to the musical director."

CHAPTER III

The Lazienki Park in Warsaw was athrob with the breath of spring.

The roses bloomed and the jasmines diffused their heavy odor through the park. It was so quiet and lovely there, that Janina sat for a few hours near the lake, forgetting everything.

The swans with spreading wings, like white cloudlets, floated over the azure bosom of the water; the marble statues glowed with immaculate whiteness; the fresh and luxuriant foliage was like a vast sea of emerald steeped in golden sunlight; the red blossoms of the chestnut trees floated down on the ground, the waters and the lawns, and flickered like rosy sparks among the shadows of the trees.

The noisy hum of the city reached here in a subdued echo and lost itself among the bushes.

Janina had come here straight from the theater. What she had seen disquieted her; she felt within herself a dull pain of disillusionment and hesitation.

She did not wish to remember anything, but only kept repeating to herself, "I'm in the theater! . . . I'm in the theater!"

There pa.s.sed before her mind the figures of her future companions.

Instinctively she felt that in those faces there was nothing friendly, only, envy and hypocrisy.

Presently she proceeded to her hotel at which she had stopped on the advice of her fellow-travelers, on the train to Warsaw. It was a cheap affair on the outskirts of the city and frequented chiefly by petty farm officials and the actors of small provincial theaters.

She was given a small room on the third floor, with a window looking out upon the red roofs of the old city, extending in crooked and irregular lines. It was such an ugly view that, on returning from Lazienki, with her eyes and soul still full of the green of the verdure and the golden sunlight, she immediately pulled down the shades and began to unpack her trunk.

She had not yet had time to 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 a.s.semble. 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 new impersonation, her face a.s.sumed the appropriate expression, her eyes glowed with the flame of the Eumenides, with storm, desire, conflict, or, kindling with the mood of love, longing, anxiety they shone like stars on a spring night.

She pa.s.sed through these various transformations unconsciously, impelled by the memory of the plays and roles she had read, and so great was her abstraction, that she forgot about everything and paid no attention to the stagehands, who were moving about her.

"My Al used to act the same way . . . the same way!" said a quiet voice from behind the scenes near the ladies' dressing-room.

Janina paused in confusion. She saw standing there a middle-aged woman of medium height, with a withered face and stern demeanor.

"You have joined our company, miss?" she inquired with a sharp energetic voice, piercing Janina with her round, owl-like eyes.

"Not quite. . . . I am about to have a trial with the musical director. Ah, yes, Mr. Cabinski even said that it was to take place before the performance! . . ." she cried, recalling what he had told her.

"Aha! with that drunkard . . ."

Janina glanced at her, surprised.

"Have you set your heart on being with us, miss?"

"In the theater? . . . yes! . . . I journeyed here for that very purpose."