"Oh, the fate of artists is a sad one! One must sacrifice all; peace, domestic happiness, love, family, and friends and for what? . . . for that which they write about us; for such wreaths that last only a few days; for the handclaps of the tiresome throng. . . . Oh, beware the provinces, mademoiselle! . . . Look at me . . . Do you see those wreaths? . . . They are splendid and withered, are they not? And yet, not so long ago I played at Lwow. . . ."
She paused for a moment as though fascinated by the memory of those days.
"The stages of the whole world were open to me. The director of the Comedie Francaise came purposely to see me and offer me an engagement. . . ."
"You possess also a mastery of French, madame?"
"Do not interrupt me. I was paid a salary of several thousand rubles; the papers could not find words strong enough to praise my acting; I was pelted with flowers and bracelets set with diamonds! (She unconsciously adjusted her cheap bracelet.) Counts and princes courted my favors. . . . Then came a great misfortune which changed everything; I fell in love . . . Yes, do not wonder at that! I loved, as deeply as it is possible to love, the most beautiful and best man in the whole world. . . . He was a nobleman, a prince and heir to a large estate. We were about to be married. I cannot tell you how happy we were! . . . Then . . . like a bolt from the blue sky . . . his family, the old prince, a tyrannical magnate without a heart parted us. . . . He took him away and wanted to pay me a hundred thousand guldens or even a million, if only I would renounce my beloved. I threw the money at his feet and showed him the door. He avenged himself cruelly. He spread the most dishonorable calumnies about me, bribed the press, and persecuted me at every step, the base wretch! . . . I had to leave Lwow and my life took an entirely different turn . . . a different turn . . ."
Cabinska paced up and down the room, tears in her eyes, love in her smile, a sad bitterness upon her lips, a tragic mask of resignation upon her face, forsaken, violent grief in her voice.
She acted the tale with such mastery that Janina believed everything.
"If you knew how sincerely I sympathize with you, madame! . . . What a dreadful fate!"
"That is already past! . . ." answered Cabinska, dropping into her chair.
She herself had come almost to believe in those stories, retold with numerous variations a hundred times over to all those who were willing to listen. Sometimes, on ending her account, moved by the picture of that fancied misfortune, she would actually suffer.