Cabinski approached next.

"Most esteemed public! You are the sun, you are beauty, you are omnipotence, you are wisdom, you are the highest judge! Yours are these children of Melpomene and for you do they live, play, and sing! Tell me, oh mighty lady, why are you not kind to us? I entreat you, oh enlightened one, give us each day a full theater!"

"My dear! Have a little money when you come to Warsaw, have a large repertoire, a select company, beautiful choruses and give those plays which I like and your treasury will be bursting with gold."

"Esteemed public!" cried Glas, with a comical pathos, kissing Kotlicki's beard.

"Speak!" said Kotlicki.

"Esteemed female! Give me some money and then have your head shaved, a yellow jacket put on you and green paper pasted about you and we will see that you are sent where you belong."

"I can't promise you money, but I a.s.sure you, you'll get . . .

delirium tremens, my son . . ." answered Kotlicki!

"Topolski, it's your turn!"

"Give me a rest! I have enough of your puppet shows."

Cabinska also did not wish to take part in the amus.e.m.e.nt, but Mimi bowed comically and stroked Kotlicki's face.

"My dear! my precious public!" she entreated in caressing tones.

"Keep Wladek from continually falling in love with some new charmer and . . . see, I could make use of a bracelet, then a green suit for the fall, some furs for the winter and . . . see that the director pays me my salary."

"You will get what you wish, for you desired it sincerely, and here is the address."

He handed her his visiting card.

"Fine! Bravo!" cried the company.

"Miss Majkowska may now approach, for I promise her a great deal in advance," announced Kotlicki.

"You are an old deceiver, dear public! You promise continually, but you never give me what you promise!" said Mela.

"I will give you . . . in a year from now a debut at the Warsaw Theater and surely engage you."

Majkowska shrugged her shoulders indifferently and sat down.

"Miss Orlowska!"

Janina arose; she felt a trifle dizzy but at the same time she was so jolly and the game appeared so comical to her, that she approached Kotlicki and called out in an entreating tone: "I desire only one thing: to be able to play. I ask only to be given roles."

"We shall speak about that with the director and you will get them."

"Let us quit that, for it is getting wearisome, Kotlicki! Come over here, we are starting the second round of drinks."

They began to drink in earnest. The room became full of buzzing voices and cigarette smoke. Each of the a.s.sembled company argued and persuaded separately, and everyone shouted nonsense.

Majkowska leaned with her elbows upon the table and, beating time with a knife against a bottle of champagne, sang gayly.

The directress argued loudly with Mimi. Topolski was silent and drank to himself alone. Wawrzecki was relating various funny anecdotes to Janina, while Glogowski, Glas, and Kotlicki were engaged in a controversy about the public.

Janina laughed and bickered with Wawrzecki, but already the wine had taken such an effect upon her that she hardly knew what she was doing. The room whirled around with her and the candles elongated themselves to the size of torches. Once she would feel a mad desire to dance, then again to launch bottles like ducks into the large mirrors which appeared to be water to her; or again, she tried hard to understand what Glogowski was just then saying. Glogowski, all flushed and tipsy, with disheveled hair and with his necktie on his back, was shouting, waving his hands, striking his fist against Glas's stomach instead of the table.

Glogowski shouted on: "To the dogs with the public's judgment! I tell you the play is bad! And if the audience applauded it and you now praise it, that is the best proof that I am right. There were a thousand of you; it is so hard for a thousand people to agree upon the truth. The individual alone is a thinking man, but the mult.i.tude is an ignorant herd that knows nothing."

"The mult.i.tude is a great man, proclaims an old proverb," whispered Kotlicki sententiously.

"It proclaims nonsense! The mult.i.tude is nothing but a big noise, a big illusion, a big hallucination," retorted Glogowski.

"Master, you seem to be devilishly sure of yourself."

"Dilettante, I merely know myself."

"By ginger! so many crazes in such a weak box!" whispered Glas, feeling Glogowski's chest.

"Genius does not abide in meat. A fat man is merely a fat animal. A lofty soul abhors fat. A healthy stomach and normality denote merely the average mortal and the average mortal is nothing but a boor."

"And such paradoxes are merely chaff."

"For a.s.ses and pseudo-intelligentsia."

"Dixit, brother! The Rhenish speaks through your lips."

"Begin all over again!" interrupted Glas, grabbing them both around the neck.

"If it is to drink, good; if it is to talk, I'll say good night!"

yelled Kotlicki.

"Then let us drink!"

"Wawrzecki, dog's face! Get Mimi and another girl and we'll arrange a little chorus."

They immediately got together and intoned a gay song. Only Glogowski did not sing, for he leaned against Cabinski and fell fast asleep and Janina's head was so heavy that she could not utter a single tone.

The singing continued with increasing gayety, while Janina felt an irresistible drowsiness overpowering her, felt herself reeling from her chair.

Later she was half-conscious of someone supporting her, covering her, leading her and felt that she was riding in a hack. She felt something near her which she could not make out, felt a hot breath on her face, and arms stealing about her waist; she heard the rumble of wheels and with difficulty distinguished a voice whispering into her ear: "I love you, I love you!" but she could not understand what it all meant.

Suddenly she trembled, for she felt hot kisses upon her mouth. She sprang up violently and recovered her senses.

Kotlicki was sitting beside her, holding her about the waist and kissing her. She wanted to shove him away from her, but her hands dropped heavily to her side; she wanted to scream out loud, but had no strength left; drowsiness overpowered her again and threw her into a lethargy, as it were.

Finally, the hack stopped and the sudden silence awakened her. She saw that she was standing on the sidewalk and that Kotlicki was ringing the doorbell of some house.

"G.o.d! G.o.d!" she whispered in bewilderment, unable to understand where she was.

Only then did Janina realize everything in a flash when Kotlicki drew close to her and whispered sweetly: "Come!"

She tore herself away from him with the force of great fear. He tried to put his arm about her again but she shoved him back with such violence that he went hurtling against the wall and then she ran as though bereft of her senses, for it seemed to her that he was pursuing, that he was already catching up with her and ready to seize her. Her heart beat like a trip hammer and her face burned with shame and terror.