"I will copy it myself; it will give me a certain pleasure."
"While you are learning it, I could act as a prompter for you, if you like."
"Oh, I should not want to take up any of your time . . ."
"Exclude a few hours each day for the performance and the rest of my time is yours to dispose of as you will," he said with fervor.
They gazed at each other a moment.
Janina gave Wladek her hand; he held and kissed it for a long time.
"Beginning with to-morrow I shall start to learn the part for I have a day off," said Janina.
"I also do not appear on the stage to-morrow."
Wladek went out a little angry at himself, for although he called Janina a "comedienne" she had made him feel abashed with her simplicity and enthusiasm. Moreover, he felt in her a certain intellectual and artistic superiority.
Janina feverishly applied herself to the study of Doctor Robin. In a few days she knew not only the role of "Mary," but had memorized the entire play. So intensely eager was she to play the role, that it seemed as though she were staking her whole life on this performance. Her former dreams that had been subdued a bit by poverty and the feverish life of the theater now again burst forth with a flaming intensity that dazzled and hypnotized her. The theater again took so powerful a hold on Janina that there was no room in her consciousness for anything else. In her hours of ecstasy it appeared to her like a mystic altar suspended high above the gray vale of everyday life and glowing with flames like a second burning bush of Moses; it seemed to her like a miracle that endured eternally.