"Because you may not and that settles it!" answered Cabinski curtly. And he immediately left the theater, because he dreaded a scene and felt a trifle sorry for Janina.
She remained standing behind the scenes with that overwhelming and sharp pain of disappointment tearing at her soul. She felt such an emptiness and loneliness that at moments it seemed to her as though she were all alone in the world and that something had pinned her to the earth with an immense weight and was crushing her down, that she was falling with lightning speed to the bottom of some deep abyss where a grayish-green whirlpool was dimly roaring.
Her thoughts and feelings were breaking and snapping under the tremendous strain and tears of hopeless abandonment flooded her eyes. She went to the dressing-room and sat down in the darkest corner.
Her dreams were crumbling to pieces: those wonderful realms were vanishing and sinking away in the misty distance, those enchanting visions were waving like torn rags in her brain and soul.
The dull grayness of the dirty walls and decorations about her and the throng of shabby, jeering beggars seemed to saturate and oppress her whole being. She felt so utterly weary, broken, sick, and helpless that she went out into the hall to look for Wladek to take her home, but she could not find him. He had cautiously disappeared, so Janina went back to the dressing-room and sat there in a daze.
"Beware of dreams! Beware of water!" she repeated to herself, remembering with difficulty who had told her that. And suddenly, Janina became pale and reeled back for such a chaos began to whirl in her brain that she thought she would go mad . . . .
For a long time she sat in a senseless torpor and wept without being able to restrain herself, for after partly regaining her consciousness the memory of all her sufferings and disappointments came back to her again. At last utterly worn out, and, lulled by the silence that enveloped the theater after the rehearsal, she fell asleep.
She was awakened by Rosinska who on that day had come earlier to the dressing-room, for she was to begin the play. When she saw the sleeping girl, the older actress was moved to pity. The remaining shreds of her womanhood covered by the artificiality of theatrical life, awoke in her at the sight of that pale face, worn by poverty and dejection.
"Miss Janina—" whispered Rosinska tenderly.
Janina arose and began nervously to wipe away the traces of tears from her face.