The Comedienne Part 30

She had already become saturated with the atmosphere in which she lived. And that public, so strange and capricious, which some accused of ignorance, of a total lack of taste and higher desires, and others of indifference, but to which all paid homage and before which they all cringed and trembled, begging its favors that public even filled Janina with anger. There was something strange in her att.i.tude. She would dress very fastidiously for the stage, merely for the purpose of attracting attention to herself; she would adopt the most graceful poses, but whenever she felt the gaze of the mult.i.tude it would send a depressing shudder through her.

"Shoemakers!" she would whisper scornfully, thereafter remaining in the shadow.

In the dressing-room chorus girls pa.s.sively submitted to Janina, for they feared her, knowing that she had intimate and continual relations with the management. They were likewise impressed by the fact that Wladek followed her continually and that Kotlicki, who formerly used to come behind the scenes only occasionally, now sat there daily throughout the whole performance and conversed with Janina with his hat off. She was surrounded by a sort of invisible aura of unconscious respect, for although many surmises were made about her on account of Kotlicki, no one ever dared insinuate anything to her face.

At first, Janina inclined toward the leading actresses of the company and wanted to enter upon a more intimate acquaintance with them, but they discouraged her, for whenever she began to speak to them about the theater or about art, they would become silent, or else commence to tell her about their own triumphs.

Stanislawski and the stage-director were Janina's sincere friends.

Many times during the rehearsals they would go upstairs to the deserted dressing-rooms or to the storeroom under the stage, and there tell stories of the theater and the actors of their day an epoch that was already dead. They would conjure up before her eyes great figures, great souls, and great pa.s.sions almost like those she had dreamed of.

How much advice they gave her concerning enunciations, cla.s.sical pose, and the best manner of reciting her lines! She listened with interest, but when she tried to play the fragment of some role according to their instructions, she found she could not do it, and they would then appear so stiff, pathetic and unnatural that she began to treat them with an indulgent pity.

With Mme. Anna, Janina lived on a footing of cool politeness. With Sowinska she was a little more intimate, for the old woman fawned upon her as a tenant who regularly paid her rent in advance.

Sowinska was coa.r.s.e and violent. There were certain days that she would eat nothing, nor even go to the theater, but would sit locked in her room, crying, or at moments swearing extraordinarily.

After such days she seemed even more energetic and would indulge with greater zest in behind-the-stage intrigues. She would walk among the audience and speak quietly with the young men who hung about the theater. She would bring the actresses invitations to suppers, bouquets, candy, and letters and would seek with a genuine zeal to induce the stubborn ones to yield to the advances made to them. She accompanied the girls as a chaperon to carousals and knew just when to find an important reason for leaving. At such times there would gleam under her mask of kindhearted and wrinkled old age an expression of cruel glee.

Janina overheard once how the old woman spoke to Shepska, who had joined the theater after being seduced by a member of the chorus.

"Listen to me, madame! . . . What does your lover give you? A home on Brewery Street and sardines with tea for breakfast, dinner and supper. . . . It's a shame to waste yourself on such a poor fool!

Don't you know that you could live as comfortably as you wish and laugh at Cabinski! Why should you have scruples! . . . A person profits by life only as he enjoys it! . . . A young and pretty girl ought not waste herself on a penniless n.o.body. . . . Perhaps you think you will the sooner get a role by remaining where you are? . . . Oho! when pears grow on a pine tree! Only those are given roles who have someone backing them."

Usually she accomplished her purpose, and though often offered costly presents, seldom accepted anything.

"I don't want them. If I advise anyone, it's because I wish them well," she would answer briefly.

Janina who had learned enough of the more intimate phases of life behind the scenes, regarded Sowinska with a certain awe. She knew that it was not for gain that the old woman shoved the younger ones into the mire of degradation, but for some hidden reason. At times, she feared her, unable to endure the enigmatic look with which Sowinska scrutinized her face. She felt instinctively that Sowinska seemed to be waiting for something or watching for some opportunity.

On one of those lachrymose days of Sowinska's Janina, who was just starting for the theater, dropped in to see her.

Entering the room she stood amazed. Sowinska was kneeling beside an open trunk, while on the bed, the table and the chairs were spread the parts of some theatrical costume and on the floor were lying stacks of faded copies of roles. Sowinska was holding in her hand the photograph of a young man with a strange face, long and so thin that all the cheek bones could be seen distinctly protruding through the skin. He had an abnormally high forehead with wide temples and a huge head. Large eyes gazed out of the pale face like the sunken hollows in a dead man's skull.

Sowinska turned to the girl with the photograph in her hands and in a voice trembling with anguish, whispered: "Look, this is my son . . . and these are my sacred relics!"

"Was he an artist?"

"An artist? . . . I should say so, but not like those monkeys of Cabinski's. How he played! The papers wrote about him. He was in Plock and I went to see him. When he appeared in The Robbers the whole theater shook with applause and cries of admiration. I sat behind the scenes and when I heard his voice and saw him I was so overcome with emotion that I thought I would die for very joy!

"I loved him so dearly that I would have let myself be torn to shreds for him! . . . He was an artist, an artist! He never owned a penny and poverty often devoured him like a dog, but I tried to help him as much as I could. I slaved for him and lived on nothing but tea and bread to save something for him."

She ceased speaking while tears flowed softly down her faded, pale face.

Janina, after a long silence, asked quietly: "Where is your son now?"

"Where?" she answered, rising from the floor. "Where? . . . He is dead! He shot himself."

She began to breathe heavily.

"My whole life has been like that!" she began again. "His father was a tailor and I kept a shop. In the beginning all went well for we had plenty of money and a decent home. My husband worked for a circus and shortly a performer caught his eye and he followed her into the world when the circus moved on."

She sighed heavily.

"I merely set my teeth tightly together. I toiled like a galley slave to gain a mere living for myself and daughter, but I was stricken by an epidemic. When I came out of it, everything went to the dogs, for my shop was sold to cover my debts. I was practically turned out into the street without a penny. An unspeakable rage seized me. I borrowed money wherever I could and together with my child went to seek my husband. I found him living with a shopkeeper in such comfort that he had forgotten all about us. I took him by the neck and brought him back with us to Warsaw. . . . He staid with me a whole year, bestowed another child upon me, and ran away again.

My daughter grew up, we took home sewing, and managed to make a living somehow.

"Then after some years they brought back my husband stone-blind. I gave him a nook in my home, for my children desired it. G.o.d was at least merciful enough to take him away.

"Later, I married off my daughter to a peasant. One day about two years ago, I was present at my daughter's name day party to which a few relatives and friends had been invited. In the midst of it they brought me a telegram from Suwalki asking me to come immediately, for my son was very ill."

She paused for a moment, gazed blankly about the room and in a low voice, filled with despair whispered on, lifting her pale face to Janina's:

"He was already dead. . . . They were waiting for me to bury him. . . ."

"Later they told me that he had fallen in love with a chorus girl and killed himself for her! They showed her to me. She was the vilest sort. And that was why he killed himself . . . .

"When I caught her in the street, I would have killed her, killed her like a mad dog to avenge my wrong and anguis.h.!.+ . . ." Sowinska shouted aloud, clenching her fists.

"Such is my life, such! I curse it every day, but cannot forget . . . all that still burns here in my bosom . . . I am in the theater, for it always seems to me that he will return, that he is already dressing and will immediately appear on the stage . . ."

"My G.o.d, G.o.d! . . . Ah, it was not he that was to blame, but she . . . you girls tear to pieces a mother's heart . . . I would trample you all underfoot like so many worms, into the mud, into poverty, so that you might agonize as I do . . . so that you might suffer, suffer, suffer. . . ."

She ceased, breathing heavily. Her yellow waxen face glared with wild hatred. Her wrinkles twitched and her pale bitten lips seethed.

Janina had been standing all the while eagerly absorbing her every word and gesture. The overwhelming reality of Sowinska's grief, so simple and strong, had called forth a responsive chord in her own heart.

She was standing in the street, wondering where she should go, when a voice behind her said: "Good morning, Miss Orlowska!"

She turned about quickly. Mrs. Niedzielska, Wladek's mother, was standing before her with a smile on her aged, simple face.

Janina greeted her hastily.

"I was about to take a walk," she said.

"Perhaps you will drop into my house for a minute? . . ." begged Niedzielska quietly. "I am so much alone that often for whole days I don't see anyone except Anna and the janitor."

She hobbled slowly along.

"Certainly, I still have a little time before the performance,"

answered Janina.

"You're not in the theater very long, are you?"

"Only three weeks."

"I could tell that right away!"

"How?"

"I can't exactly explain. I watched you at Cabinska's party and immediately knew that you were a newcomer. I even mentioned it to Wladek . . ."