"Death!" she answered herself. "Death!" and she gazed fixedly at that dead face with the congealed tears on its cheeks, and not fear, but an immense silence enveloped her soul.
She looked all about her as though she were seeking for the cause of that deep silence at her side.
Then, she began thinking of her father, of the theater, and of herself, but as though they were things which she had only seen or read about.
"What am I going to do?" Janina asked herself aloud after she had returned home. It was impossible for her to see or even to imagine what the morrow would be like.
"In this condition I can't go to the theater, I can't go anywhere. But what am I going to do?" That question smote her now and then, as with a club.
Day began to dawn and flood the room with its drab and gray light, but Janina still sat on the same spot, gazing blankly out of the window, with deeply sunken eyes and whispering with lips blackened by fever: "What am I going to do? What am I going to do?"
CHAPTER XI
The season ended. Cabinski was leaving for Plock with an entirely new company, for Topolski had taken away his best forces and the rest had scattered among various companies.
In the pastry shop on Nowy Swiat, Krzykiewicz, who had broken with Ciepieszewski, was organizing a company of his own. Stanislawski was also starting a small company on a profit-sharing basis. Topolski was already preparing his company for its trip to Lublin.
The local garden-theaters were all closed for the season and a deathly silence reigned over them. The stages were boarded up and the dressing-rooms and entrances locked. The verandas were strewn with broken chairs and rubbish. The autumn leaves fluttered from the trees and torn scraps of programs of the last performances rustled about sadly in the breeze. The season was over.