"Dobek!" called Majkowska. "My dear fellow, only support me well! . . . I know my part, but in the second act slip me the words of that monologue a little louder."

Dobek nodded his head and had not yet returned to his post when Glas accosted him.

"Dobek! Will you have a drink of whisky, eh? Perhaps you'd like a sandwich?" he asked the prompter in a solicitous tone.

"To the sandwich add a beer," answered Dobek, smiling blissfully.

"My good fellow, don't fail me! I really know my part to-day, but I'm likely to get stuck here and there . . ."

"Well, well! only don't lie down yourself and you can be sure I won't let you perish."

And in this way, every other minute some actor or actress would approach Dobek, who solemnly promised to "uphold" them all.

"Dobek! I need only the first words of each line . . . remember!"

reminded Topolski at the very last.

Glogowski strayed about the stage, himself set up the interior of the peasants' hut, gave instructions to the actors and uneasily scanned the first row of seats occupied by the representatives of the press.

"It will be warm for me to-morrow!" he whispered to himself, and began to walk about feverishly, for he was unable to stand or sit still in one spot. Finally, he went out into the garden-hall, stood leaning against a chestnut tree and watched with beating heart the first act of his play which had just begun.

The audience sat coldly and quietly listening. An oppressive silence filled the hall. Glogowski saw hundreds of eyes and immovable heads, he even saw the restaurant waiters standing on chairs beneath the veranda, watching the stage. The voices of the actors resounded distinctly, floating out to that dark, densely packed ma.s.s of people.

Glogowski sat down in the darkest corner behind the scenes on a heap of decorations, covered his face with his hands and listened.

Scene followed scene, and still that same ominous silence reigned.

Glogowski was unable to sit there quietly! He heard the baritone voice of Topolski, the soprano of Majkowska and the somewhat hoa.r.s.e voice of Glas, but it was not that which he wished to hear. Not that! He bit his fingers so violently that tears came to his eyes from the pain.

The first act ended.

A few lukewarm handclaps broke out here and there and died away again in the general silence.

Glogowski sprang up and with craning neck and feverishly gleaming eyes waited, but he heard only the thump of the falling curtain and the buzz of voices suddenly rising in the hall.

During the intermission he again observed the public. Their faces wore a strange expression. The members of the press frowned, and whispered something among themselves, while certain of them made notes.

"I feel cold!" whispered Glogowski to himself, shaking as though with an icy chill. And he began to stray distractedly all about the theater.

"I congratulate you!" said Kotlicki, pressing Glogowski's hand. "The play is too severe and brutal, but it is something new!"

"Which means neither fish nor flesh!" answered Glogowski with a forced smile.

"We'll see how it will be further on. . . . The public is surprised to see a folk play without dances. . . ."

"What the devil do they want! It is not a ballet!" muttered Glogowski impatiently.

"But you know they dote on songs and dances."

"Then let them go to a vaudeville show!" retorted Glogowski. And he walked away.

After the second act the applause was louder and more prolonged.

In the dressing-rooms the humor of the actors began to rise to its usual level.

Cabinski had already twice sent Wicek to the box office to find out how things were going there. Gold's first reply was: "Good," and his second: "Sold out."

Glogowski continued to torment himself, but now in a different way, for having heard the applause for which he had so feverishly waited, he had calmed himself a bit and sat behind the scenes watching the play. Now he became pale with anger, kicked his hat with his foot and hissed with impatience, for he could no longer endure what he saw. Out of his peasant characters, which were in every inch true to life, they were making ba.n.a.l figures of the sentimental melodrama, puppets dressed in folk costumes. The playing of the men actors was at least to some extent bearable, but the women, with the exception of Majkowska and Mirowska, who acted the part of an old beggar woman, played abominably. Instead of speaking their parts, they rattled them off in a singsong voice, and over-emphasized hatred, love, and laughter. Everything was done so mechanically, artificially, and thoughtlessly, without a grain of truth or sincerity that Glogowski fairly choked with despair. It was merely a masquerade.

"Sharper! More energetically!" he whispered, stamping his foot, but no one paid any attention to his exhortations.

Suddenly, a smile flitted over his lips, for he saw Janina entering the stage. She caught that smile and that saved her, for her voice had died in her breast. She was trembling from stage fright so that she did not see the stage, nor the actors, nor the public; it seemed to her that she was engulfed in a sea of light. When she saw that friendly smile she immediately recovered her calm and courage.

Janina was merely to grasp a broom, take her drunken husband by the collar, shout a few lines of imprecation and complaint and then drag him out forcibly through the door. She did all this a trifle too violently, but with such realism that she gave the impression of an infuriated peasant woman.

Glogowski went to Janina. She stood on the stairs leading to the dressing-room; her eyes beamed with a certain deep satisfaction.

"Very good! . . . that was a real peasant woman. You have a temperament and a voice and those are two first-rate endowments!"

said Glogowski, and tip-toed back to his seat.

"Perhaps we ought to give an encore of that scene?" whispered Cabinski into his ear.

"Dry up and go to the devil!" answered Glogowski in the same quiet whisper and felt a great desire to strike Cabinski. But just then, a new thought occurred to his mind, for he saw the nurse standing nearby.

"Nurse!" he called to her.

The nurse unwillingly approached Glogowski.

"Tell me, nurse, what do you think of that comedy?" he asked her curiously.

"The t.i.tle is very unpolitic . . . 'churls'! Everyone knows that peasants are not n.o.bles, but to call them by such a scornful name for the amus.e.m.e.nt of others is a downright sin!"

"Well, that is of minor importance . . . but do you think those characters resemble real peasants?"

"Yes, you have hit upon the real thing. Peasants are just like that, only they don't dress so elegantly, nor are they so refined in their bearing and speech. But pardon me, sir, if I say one thing; what's the use of it all? Present, if you wish, n.o.bles, Jews, or any other kind of ragam.u.f.fins, but to make a laughing-stock and a comedy of honest tillers of the soil is a downright shame! G.o.d is like to punish you for such frivolity! A husbandman is a husbandman . . .

beware of trifling with him!" she added in conclusion and continued to gaze at the stage with an ever greater severity and almost with tears of indignation in her eyes.

Glogowski had no time to wonder at her att.i.tude for just then the third act ended amid thunderous applause and calls for the author, but he did not go out to bow.

A few journalists came to shake hands with him and praise his play.

He listened to them indifferently, for already his mind was occupied with a plan for remaking that play. Now first did he see in detail its various inconsistencies and the things that were lacking, and immediately completed them in his mind, added new scenes, changed about situations and was so absorbed with his task that he no longer paid any attention to how they were playing the fourth act.

Again applause filled the entire hall and the unanimous cry of: "Author! Author!"

"They're calling for you, go out to them," someone whispered into Glogowski's ear.

"The deuce I will! Go to the devil, sweet brother!"

Majkowska and Topolski were also being recalled.