In two days the performance was to take place. That interval was like one immense vista of light in which Janina seemed eagerly absorbed. It seemed to her that she was entirely satisfied.
"At last! At last! Now, all my poverty and humiliation will end!" Janina whispered rapturously to herself. She thought that a repertory of roles would immediately be assigned to her. She gave free reign to her imagination and already saw herself upon some pinnacle. She was already in that promised land of powerful emotions about which she dreamed every day in that realm that swarmed before her eyes with a stately throng of heroic figures, superhuman passions, and dazzling beauty, a realm in which there reigned a perfect harmony between dreams and reality.
Janina smiled with pity at those days of want and poverty, as though she were bidding farewell to them forever. Everything that surrounded her, even Wladek, paled into insignificance before her fascinated eyes.
A thousand times she repeated the role of "Mary." She sat for hours at a time before the mirror, practicing the appropriate facial expression and became feverish with impatience while awaiting the arrival of the momentous day. At night, Janina would sit half asleep in her bed and gaze before her. It seemed to her that she saw the crowded theater and the representatives of the press, that she heard the quiet murmurs of the public, saw their enraptured glances, and that she entered the stage and played. . . . Half unconsciously she would repeat the words of her role, kindle with ardor, declaim them with exaltation. Then, overcome by drowsiness again, she would smile through tears of happiness for she heard most distinctly that well-known and thrilling thunder of applause and cries of: "Orlowska! Orlowska!" And with that smile on her face she would fall asleep and wake again to continue her dreams.
Janina sold whatever she could to buy the appropriate costume for her part. With a smile of contentment she would drive away Wladek so that he might not interfere with her.
On that day which was to be for her so important and decisive, Cabinski, before the general rehearsal, took away her part and gave it to Majkowska.
Intrigue and envy had gained their end. Cabinski was forced to yield, for Topolski had threatened to leave the company immediately unless he took away the role from Janina and gave it to Majkowska. It was the way he chose to avenge himself because of Janina's refusal to go to Kotlicki.
Struck to the very heart, Janina almost lost her reason under this blow. She began to stagger on her feet and felt that the whole theater was whirling about her and that everything was sinking with her into a bottomless darkness. She cast a glance of unspeakable grief at all those about her, as though seeking for help, but on the faces of most of the members of the company there was an expression of merriment over what they thought was a splendid joke, and the beastly joy of cretins at the suppression of talent. They mocked the defeated aspirant with their glances; burning taunts and jibes began to fall from all sides like stones upon her soul crushed by an unexpected blow. Brutal laughs arose, scourging her as with a whip and all the baseness of human delight in the pain of others found its object and outlet.
And Janina stood there without a word or motion, with that dreadful pain in her heart in which it seemed as though all the arteries had been torn open and were flooding it with the blood of despair.
She collected enough strength to ask: "Why may I not play the part?"