They became silent. The rain fell incessantly and was already forming big puddles of water along the road. Glogowski gazed gloomily at the city whose towers appeared outlined upon the misty horizon.
"A base city!" he grumbled angrily. "For three years I have vainly been trying to conquer it. I am struggling and killing myself, and yet, not even a dog knows me."
"If you keep on telling them that they are base knaves and fools you will never conquer them."
"I will. They will not love me, to be sure, but they will have to reckon with me, they must! However, such citadels are most easily stormed by actors, singers, and dancers. They make a clean sweep of everything with only one appearance."
"But their triumph is only for a day. After they have left the stage all trace of them is lost like that of a stone cast into the water!" said Janina with a certain bitterness, gazing fixedly at the ever nearer appearing, crowded walls of Warsaw. Only at that moment did she realize that the fame of which she dreamed was merely the fame of a day.
"It seems to me that you have an appetite for the same thing that I have," remarked Glogowski.
"I have!" she answered with emphasis and her voice resounded with the explosive force of something that had been long pent up.
"I have!" she repeated, but this time in a much quieter tone and without enthusiasm. The light died away in Janina's eyes and they strayed aimlessly over those heights of the city in the distance, without understanding anything, for she was perturbed by the thought of that ephemeral fame, for she remembered the faded wreaths of Cabinska and the bygone fame of Stanislawski, for she was thinking with growing bitterness of those thousands of famous actors who were dead and whose names even were forgotten. Janina felt a distressing conflict of feelings in her breast. She leaned more heavily on Glogowski's arm and walked on without saying another word.
At Zakroczymska Street they took a hack; Kotlicki jumped in and went along with them, forming a party of three. Janina eyed him angrily, but he pretended he did not notice it and gazed at her with his everlasting smile. Glogowski and Kotlicki accompanied her to her home. She had only enough time left to rush into the house, change her dress, take the things she needed and immediately start off again for the theater.
Because of the rain a few of the other chorus girls were also late. Cabinski, expecting an empty house on account of the weather, was irritated and rushed up and down the stage, shouting to all those who were entering: "I see you girls are getting lazy. It is already past eight o'clock and not one of you is yet dressed."