Pepa sat in the salon with the editor and Kotlicki, who was one of the steady patrons of the theater. She was relating something in a lively and jovial tone, for the editor would every now and then burst out in a discreet laugh, while Kotlicki would contort into a smile, his long equine face, and gather about him his coat-tails.

All that was known about him was that he was rich and ennuied.

Kotlicki listened patiently enough, but, at last, bending toward Cabinska, he asked in a wooden, expressionless voice, "When does the culminating act of to-day's performance begin--the supper?"

"Immediately . . . we are waiting only for the owner of the house to arrive."

"No doubt the rent for the last quarter must be unpaid, if you show her so much consideration," he whispered ironically.

"You always see everything in the worst light!" she answered, throwing a flower at him.

"To-day I merely see that the directress is fascinating, that Majkowska has the mien of a lioness, and that the lady who is walking with her . . . but who is she?"

"A newly engaged chorus girl."

"Well, I see that yonder aspirant to the dramatic art is beautiful by virtue of her originality and alone possesses more distinction than all the rest of them taken together. Furthermore, I see that Mimi to-day resembles a freshly baked roll, white and round and rosy; that Rosinska has the face of a black poodle who has fallen into a bin of flour and not yet succeeded in shaking it off, and that her Sophie looks like a freshly washed and combed little greyhound. Kaczkowska looks like a frying pan covered with melted b.u.t.ter; Mrs. Piesh like a hen seeking her strayed chicks; and Mrs.

Glas like a calf enveloped in a rainbow. Where the d.i.c.kens did she get all those colors she wears?"

"You are a merciless mocker!"

"You can make me relent, Directress, by hurrying the supper . . ."

he answered and became silent.

The directress began telling in detail about a new joke that Majkowska had played on Topolski. Kotlicki, listening to it, frowned impatiently.

"It is too bad that there is not a law which would compel you ladies to pierce your tongues instead of your ears," he said derisively, enveloping himself in a cloud of cigar smoke and observing Janina who was still promenading with Majkowska.

Both beamed with satisfaction, realizing the attention they attracted. Janina's eyes were joyous, and her crimson lips smiled charmingly revealing her pearly teeth.

Wladek was engaged in some lengthy conversation with his mother and also followed Janina with his eyes. Meeting the glances of Kotlicki he turned away.

Shortly they were joined by Sophie Rosinska, a fourteen-year old typical actor's child with the long, thin mouth of a greyhound, a pale complexion, and the large eyes of a madonna. Her short, curled hair shook with every motion of her head and her thin, narrow lips fairly bit with their spitefulness as she related something to Majkowska in her lively voice.

"Sophie!" energetically called Mrs. Rosinska.

Sophie left them and sat down beside her mother, gloomy and sulky.

"I constantly keep telling you not to have anything to do with Majkowska!" whispered Rosinska, adjusting the curls on her daughter's head.

"Don't bother me with your nonsense. Mamma! . . . I'm sick and tired of listening to it! I like Miss Mela because she isn't a scarecrow like those others," saucily prattled Sophie and smiled with childish naivete at Niedzielska, who was looking at her.

"Wait till we get home. I'll fix you!"

"All right, all right . . . we'll see about that, Mother!"

Mrs. Rosinska turned to Stanislawski, who sat beside her all the while and chatted without drinking anything. She began to make remarks about Majkowska, with whom she was always on a war footing, for they had almost the same repertory and Majkowska had, in addition, talent, youth, and beauty, none of which Rosinska possessed. Rosinska hated all young women, for in each she now saw a rival and a thief stealing her roles and her favor with the public.

Lately she had become intimate with Stanislawski for she felt that something similar was happening to him. He never spoke to her about it, nor ever complained, but now, when he bent toward her his thin, waxen face all seamed with wrinkles as fine as hairs, his yellowish eyes glowed gloomily.

"Did you notice how Cabinska played to-day?" she asked him.

"Did I notice?" answered Stanislawski, "I see that every day. I know long ago what they are . . . long ago! What is Cabinski himself? . . . A clown and tightrope walker who in our days would not even have been permitted to play the part of a lackey! . . . And Wladek! he's an artist, is he? . . . A beast who makes a public house of the stage! . . . He plays only for his mistresses! His n.o.blemen are shoemakers and barbers, while his barbers and shoemakers are loafers from the water front . . . What do they introduce on the stage? . . . Hooligans, the street, slang and mud. . . . And what is Glas? . . . A drunkard in life, which is a minor consideration, but it is not permissible for a true artist to wander about taverns with the most disgusting hoodlums; it is not permissible for a true artist to introduce on the stage the hiccoughs of a drunkard and vulgar brutality. . . . Take Ziolkowski's The Master and the Apprentice for instance: there you have a type, a finished type of a drunkard presented in broad and cla.s.sical outlines; there is gesture and pose and mimicry, but there is also n.o.bility. What does Glas make of that role? . . . He makes a filthy, repulsive, drunken shoemaker of the lowest order. That is their art! . . . And Piesh? . . . Piesh is also not much better, although he bears the stamp of a good artist . . . but his acting is a miserable and an everlasting botch; he has a humor on the stage, like that of fighting dogs, but not human and n.o.ble . . . and not ours! . . ."

He became silent a moment and rubbed his eyes with his long skinny hand with thin, knotty fingers.

"And Krzykiewicz? . . . and Wawrzecki? . . . and Razowiec? . . .

perhaps they are artists, eh? . . . Artists! . . . Do you remember Kalacinski? . . . He was an artist! Or Krzensinski, Stobinski, Felek, and Chelchowski? . . . Those were artists who could bring down the house! . . . What are our actors compared with them? . . ."

he asked encompa.s.sing with an inimical glance the company about them. "What is this band of shoemakers, tailors, paper hangers, barbers? . . . Comedians, ragam.u.f.fins, and clowns! . . . Bah! art is going to the dogs. In a few more years when we are gone, they will make of the stage a barroom, a circus, or a storage warehouse.

"Do you hear? . . . they give me half-sheet roles of old men and old nincomp.o.o.ps, to me! . . . do you hear? . . . to me, who for forty years have upheld the entire cla.s.sical repertory to me! Oh! oh!" he hissed quietly tearing his finger nails convulsively.

"Topolski! . . . Topolski alone has a talent, but what does he do with it? . . . A bandit, a Singalese, who goes into epileptic fits on the stage, who is ready to put a barn on the stage if those new authors require it. They call that realism, while in truth it is nothing but roguery! . . ."

"And the women? . . . you forget the women, sir! . . . Who plays the parts of sweethearts and heroines? . . . Who is in the chorus? . . .

scrub-women and barmaids, who have made of the theater a screen for their licentiousness. But that's nothing . . . the directors want that; what do they care if these women possess neither talent, intelligence nor beauty! . . . They give them the most important roles. They act the parts of heroines and look like chambermaids or like those who walk the streets! . . . But what do the directors care as long as the business keeps going and the box office is sold out . . . that's all they care about!" She spoke rapidly and the blood rushed to her face so violently that she became all red, in spite of the thick layer of powder and cream.

The stage-director, who was once the celebrated hero of a few theaters, and old Mirowska who was still retained only as a favor because of her old age and brilliant past completed the camp of the veterans of the old actors' guard, who had fought in other times, and looked upon the present with gloomy eyes. They stood beneath the bridge of a sinking ship, hence no one even heard their cries of despair.

Kotlicki beckoned to Wladek and made room for him beside himself.

Wladek in pa.s.sing Janina cast a glance of fiery pa.s.sion at her, and then sat down near Kotlicki, rubbing his knee which bothered him whenever he sat for any length of time.

"Rheumatism is already there, eh? . . . while fame and money are still far away! . . ." Kotlicki began mockingly.

"Oh, the deuce take fame! . . . Money I wouldn't mind having . . ."

"Do you think you will ever get it?"

"I will . . . my faith in that is unfailing! At times it seems to me as though I already felt it in my pocket."

"That's true. Your mother owns a house."

"And six children and a pile of debts as high as the chimney! . . .

No, not that! . . . I will get the money elsewhere . . ."

"In the meanwhile, according to your old custom you borrow it wherever you can, eh?" Kotlicki mocked on.

"Oh, don't fear. I'll return yours this month yet, without fail."

"I will wait even until the reappearance of the comet of 1812; it will pa.s.s this way again in about a year. . . ."

"Don't mock me. . . . You'd not hurt people as much with a club as you do with your cynicism."

"That's my weapon!" answered Kotlicki, contracting his brows.

"Perhaps, before long, I shall marry and then I will pay up all my debts. . . ."

Kotlicki turned violently towards him, glanced straight into his eyes and began to laugh with his quiet, neighing voice, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his face into a grimace.

"That is the finest piece of invention that I have ever heard!"