Władysław Stanisław Reymont

“ Suddenly, she changed the tone of her voice and asked Janina inquisitively: "Tell me, have you also someone? . . ."
"I have art!" answered Janina gravely, not even offended by her question.
"You are either very ambitious or very wise . . . I did not know you before . . ." said Majkowska and began to listen more attentively.
"Ambitious . . . perhaps, for I have only one object in belonging to the theater and that is art."
"Come, don't try to play a farce with me! Ha! ha! Art, as an aim of life! That is a theme for a fine couplet, but it is an old trick." ”

“ She fortified herself against the present with dreams of what was to come.
Furthermore, Janina loved Wladek. She did not know how it had come about, but she now knew that she could not do without him. She felt very happy and peaceful, when, leaning on his arm, she walked along the streets and listened to his low, melodious voice. The soft velvety glances of his dark eyes made her glow with passion and a sweet helplessness . . . .
Everything about him attracted her. He appeared so beautiful upon the stage! He acted with such fervor and lyricism the parts of unhappy lovers in the melodramas! ”

“ Janina cried in amazement.
"Let us stop playing a comedy, let us drop this game of hide-and-seek and look at things as they are and we shall see that I am not proposing anything out of the ordinary to you. What am I asking of you? Merely that you go to Kotlicki for the money which is to be the foundation of our common future, the money which will create our theater for us and without which none of us can budge from Warsaw. So what is there wrong in this? What wrong can there be in that which will make almost all of us happy?" ”

“ You will achieve fame, but through so much suffering, through so many tears. . . . Beware of dreaming!"
And he kissed her hand.
The noisy buzz of voices merged with tones of music broke the stillness in which both of them had become rapt.
For a little while Janina sat alone, after her companion withdrew, torn by dim forebodings.
"You are going to be very famous! Beware of dreaming!" she kept repeating to herself.
That evening the counselor sent to Janina a bouquet, a box of candy, and a letter inviting her to supper at the "Idyl," mentioning that Topolski and Majkowska were also to be there. ”

“ And unable to answer that question, Janina would smile pityingly at the emptiness of their existence.
"A race of butterflies that knows not whence, nor why, nor to what end their life has been given them!" she whispered, sating herself to her heart's content with that silent scorn of people that was growing to abnormal proportions in her.
Cabinska, Janina now hated with her whole soul, for although Pepa always treated her with a sugary affability, she never paid her for Yadzia's piano lessons, taking advantage of Janina's situation and abilities with a hypocritical smile of friendliness. ”

“ Only when they began to play Doctor Robin, Janina stood behind the scenes to see what would be done with her role. It is impossible to describe that subtle, excruciating pain that rent her soul when she saw Majkowska as "Mary" on the stage. She felt that that other woman was tearing out piecemeal from her brain and heart every word, every gesture, every pose and accent. ”

“ She went through the playing with all the actors, suffered together with those paper heroes and heroines, feared with them and loved with them; she felt their nervousness before entering the stage, trembled with emotion in the pathetic moments of the play, while certain words and cries sent so strange and painful a tremor through her that they brought the tears to her eyes and a faint cry to her lips.
An increasing number of people from the audience began to come behind the scenes. Boxes of candy, bouquets, and single flowers circulated freely from hand to hand. ”

“ And he was just as much of a peasant as she deep within himself; beneath the smooth veneer of the civilized and educated man seethed a primitive unbridled energy and the desire for a wife—a woman to rule him. This young Hercules, who, when he felt like it, could fling unaided into the wagon two-hundred pound sacks of wheat, and who often had to toil like a common laborer to quell with weariness the riotous tides that often rose in his healthy blood, unexhausted through dozens of generations dreamed of Janina and was vanquished by her beauty and sweetness. ”

“ One must allow the candle of one's life to burn out slowly and calmly to the very end—in that lies happiness."
"So that is happiness?" asked Janina, feeling a sudden chill penetrating her soul.
"Yes. Peace is happiness. To negate everything, to kill one's desires and passions, to tear out of oneself illusions and whims that is the way to attain it. It means to hold fast your soul in the grip of self-knowledge and prevent it from dissipating itself in foolish things." ”

“ What is that?" she whispered to herself and saw a motley, heterogeneous public that was indifferent to the quality of a play. It came to the theater to amuse itself and laugh; it hankered for clownishness and the circus.
"What is that? Comedianism for profit and for the amusement of the multitude," Janina answered herself. The stage now appeared to her as a real arena for the feats of clowns and trained monkeys.
"I wanted to be an entertainer of the mob! And where does art come in? What is pure art, the ideal, for which hundreds of people sacrifice their lives?" ”

“ Janina longed for them now and listened through the nights, for it seemed to her that she heard the grave autumnal murmur of the forest, the somnolent rustling of its branches. It seemed that she felt within herself the slow, endless swaying of those giant trees, the soft motions of the verdure bathed in golden sunlight, the joyous cry of the birds, the fragrance of the young pine saplings and juniper bushes the whole leisurely life of nature. ”

“ To thee, in this temple of art, High altars I'll erect!
"Please forgive me that," continued Wladek. "I myself say that outside of art there is nothing! If it were not for the theater . . ."
"You would have become a cobbler!" interposed Glas.
"Only a very young and a very naive woman can talk like that," spitefully exclaimed Kaczkowska.
"Or one who does not yet know what Cabinski's salary tastes like," added Rosinska.
"Oh, thou art worthy of pity! You have enthusiasm . . . poverty will rob you of it; you have inspiration . . . poverty will rob you of it; you have youth, talent, and beauty . ”

“ 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. ”

“ Try as she would, Janina could not shake off this depressing mood.
She sat down at the piano and began mechanically to play scales, but the somnolent monotony of the tones only added to her nervousness. Later she played some of Chopin's Nocturnes, lingered over those mysterious tones that seemed like strains from another world, full of tears, pain, cries of anguish, and bleak despair; the radiance of cold moonlight nights, moans like the whisper of departing souls, the laughter of parting, the soft vibrations of subtle, sad life. ”

“ It seemed to Janina that through his eyes she saw farther and deeper. Her soul was growing (as the peasants describe certain stages in the development of youth) , so besides her distant plans of fame in the future, she needed something for herself alone, she needed to strengthen herself and support herself on some loving heart which would at the same time serve as a stepping-stone for her own elevation. She no longer felt lonely, for she could now reveal to Wladek her most secret thoughts, dreams, and projects for the future and go over various heroic roles together with him. ”

“ All that warps the human soul. The greatest actors are merely phonographs wound up sometimes by sages, sometimes by geniuses, but most often by fools. And they speak to even greater fools. Actors, artists, creators are merely blind instruments of nature which uses them to reveal itself and for ends known to itself alone! To them it seems that they are something real, but that is a sad deception, for they are merely instruments which are thrown into the discard when they are no longer needed or have lost their usefulness."
"Who are you?" Janina asked, almost unknowingly, stirred by his words. ”

“ Janina sent word to the director that she was sick, but no one came to see her. Cabinska merely sent Wicek to say that Yadzia was longing for her piano lessons, and nothing more.
There, they were playing, learning, creating something and living! Here, she lay sunken in a complete apathy, like a crushed soul that hardly dares at moments to think that it still exists and then again sinks into an agony which cannot, however, end in the oblivion of death. ”

“ I want to tell you that your comedy not only wearies me, but is beginning to anger me. I am still too little a hysterical actress and too much a normal woman to take pleasure in such acting. I was never taught by my mother, the secret code of a woman's conduct toward a man, nor did they warn me of man's falsehood and baseness. I observed that quickly enough for myself, and see it every day behind the scenes. You think that to every woman who is in the theater you can boldly talk about your love as though it were some trifle, in the hope that perhaps she will swallow your bait! ”

“ Merely that people love, hate, and fight one another the same as ever; that evil and brute force continue to reign as they always have done; that the world and life are merely a big mill in which brains and consciences are ground to dust. It is more comfortable to know nothing rather than that," he continued.
"But is it right for anyone to seclude himself so egoistically from all that is going on in the world?" asked Janina. ”

“ Sowinska's demeanor suddenly changed, for she glanced angrily at Janina and wanted to say something sharp, but seeing that Janina's face wore an expression of complete indifference, she refrained and left the room.
Janina thought about Bukowiec.
"I have no home," she thought, even without bitterness. "The whole wide world is my home," she added, but suddenly remembered what Grzesikiewicz had told her about her father and stirred as though some hidden pain had awakened in her. ”

“ Glogowski shouted on: "To the dogs with the public's judgment! I tell you the play is bad! And if the audience applauded it and you now praise it, that is the best proof that I am right. There were a thousand of you; it is so hard for a thousand people to agree upon the truth. The individual alone is a thinking man, but the multitude is an ignorant herd that knows nothing."
"The multitude is a great man, proclaims an old proverb," whispered
Kotlicki sententiously.
"It proclaims nonsense! The multitude is nothing but a big noise, a big illusion, a big hallucination," retorted Glogowski. ”

“ If you want to call hunger, continual envy, and the inability to live otherwise, an ecstasy!" sneered Rosinska.
"Happy are they who have not fallen a prey to that disease, or escaped it in time" added Razowiec.
"But isn't it better to live and suffer and die in that way, as long as you have art as your goal. A thousand times would I prefer to live that way than to be my husband's servant, the slave of my children, and a household chattel!" exclaimed Janina with a passionate outburst. ”

“ Beyond art I see almost nothing," answered Janina suddenly kindling anew with ardor.
"Even love?" asked Wladek.
"But art appears to me to be a greater and completer expression of the ideal than love . . ." answered Janina.
"But it is more alien to human beings and not so necessary to life as is love. Without art the world could exist, but without love . . . never! Moreover, art causes more painful disappointments than love."
"But it also gives greater joys. Love is an individual emotion; art is a social emotion, a synthesis. ”

“ Janina was seized with a desperate fear that her quest would fail, so with courage and a tone of strong entreaty in her voice she began to speak hurriedly:
"Mr. Director! I journeyed here especially to join your company. I love the theater so ardently that I cannot live without it! . . . Do not refuse me! I do not know anyone here in Warsaw. I came to you because I had read so much about you in the papers. I feel that I could play . . . I have memorized so many roles! . . . You will see, Mr. Director . . . if you only let me appear . . . you will see!"
Cabinski was silent. ”

“ Kotlicki again whispered to Janina as a certain idea entered into his head.
"Every variety is good, providing it is not wearisome. Have you heard that before?" answered Janina impatiently.
"Thank you! I will remember it. . . . But do you know this: patience is the first condition of success."
Kotlicki glanced at her quizzically, bowed to her with his head, and retired among the rest of the company. He possessed a brazen self-confidence and decided, at all events, to wait.
Kotlicki was not one of those whom a woman can drive away from herself with scorn or even with insults. ”

“ Kotlicki meditated a moment and then continued: "And yet you think that you can remain in the theater without becoming a hysterical type? That's impossible! This phantom life, this daily portrayal of new characters, feelings and thoughts upon that shifting plane of impressions, amid artificial stimulants this must metamorphose every human being, demolish his former personality and recast or rather disintegrate his soul so that you can put almost any stamp upon it. You must become a chameleon; on the stage, for art's sake, in life, from necessity." ”

“ In the ladies' dressing-room an old woman was standing under the gaslight, sewing something.
Janina explored all the corners, examining everything, emboldened by the fact that no one paid the slightest attention to her. The walls behind the huge canvas decorations were dirty, with their plaster broken off, and covered with sticky dampness. The floors, the moldings, the shabby furniture and decorations, that seemed to her like beggarly rags, were thick with dust and filth. The odor of mastic, cosmetics, and burnt hair, floating over the stage, nauseated her. ”

“ He possessed her body, but not her soul that mysterious something, that love that gives itself for life and eternity and makes of itself a footstool for the lover. This attitude of Janina's irritated him, but nevertheless attracted him so irresistibly that he doubled his pretenses of love, thinking that by a larger dose of sentimental falsehood, and a better acting of emotion he would at last captivate and conquer her completely. ”

“ Sowinska, after Wladek's frequent visits, became more intimate and friendly with Janina and advised her to sell those parts of her wardrobe which she did not need, even offering to do it for her.
And so life went on for Janina who was oblivious to everything else but that performance of Doctor Robin which she awaited with the greatest impatience. She lived, as it were, in a troubled dream. Through the prism of dreams the world again appeared brighter to her, and people kind. ”