Janina

“ 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. ”

“ On the morrow Janina received a solemn promise from Cabinska that she would be given the part.
In the afternoon Wladek brought Doctor Robin. This was his first visit to Janina's home, so he took care to appear particularly handsome, elegant, polite, and somewhat absent-minded. He acted love and respect for Janina with the skill of a virtuoso; he was very quiet, as though from an excess of happiness.
"For the first time I feel shy and happy!" he said, kissing Janina's hand.
"Why shy? You are always so sure of yourself on the stage!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ She thought of Janina as of a princess. Her one dream was to have for a daughter-in-law a real lady, an aristocrat whose beauty and high birth would dazzle her, for her husband and his money and the respect which the entire neighborhood showed him did not suffice her. She was always conscious of being a peasant and received all honors with a true peasant-like distrust.
"Andy!" she often said to her son. "Andy, I wish you would marry Miss Orlowska. That's what I call a real lady! When she looks at you, she makes you shudder with awe and wish to fall at her feet and beg some boon of her. ”

“ Janina grew up rapidly, and her mental and physical development were of the best, but having been conceived, born, and reared in an environment of continual hatred and quarrels and nursed with the tears and complaints of her mother at her father's brutality, she naturally disliked him and feared his scorn. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It pleased Janina to see him applauded on the stage. And so skillfully did he know how to exhibit the resources of his brain, that he was generally taken for an educated man, while in reality he possessed only cleverness and the brazenness of a Warsaw loafer and trickster. Moreover, for Janina he was the first and only man to whom she had ever surrendered herself. It seemed to her that this bound them for all time and indissolubly.
It happened, as it were, of itself, after one of the rehearsals of Doctor Robin in which Wladek acted as a substitute in the role of "Garrick." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Janina was present at a few of these evenings at Topolski's house, but was bored by them, for the men would usually play cards, while the women, if they were not gossiping or complaining, would enclose themselves within a narrow circle for secret whispering from which they barred Janina, fearing that she might betray something to Cabinski, to whose home she went daily to give piano lessons. ”

“ She saw hundreds of young faces, women's faces, smiling and still stirred by the music, while their owners fanned themselves; the men in their black evening clothes formed dark spots scattered at regular intervals, upon the light background of feminine toilettes.
Janina felt a strange disappointment as she realized that the faces of the public were very much like those of Grzesikiewicz, her father, her home acquaintances, the principal of her boarding school, the professors at the academy and the telegrapher at Bukowiec. ”

“ She stood in the center of the room almost dazed, with fear that she must return to Bukowiec.
"No, it is impossible! . . . I couldn't stand it there a single week . . . and moreover, he drove me away from home forever . . ."
A chaotic conflict between hate, sorrow, and a quiet, scarcely perceptible feeling of homesickness began to rage in Janina's heart.
The bell rang in the anteroom.
Janina sat down and waited quietly. She heard the door opening, the voices of Grzesikiewicz and Sowinska, and the sound of an overcoat being hung up. ”

“ Janina.
"Well, what of that? . . . Even though you fall, others will surely reach the goal and convince themselves that it wasn't worth reaching that it isn't worth striving for, nor shedding a single tear, nor bearing a single pang . . . for everything is illusion, illusion, illusion . . . ."
They became silent. Janina felt a sudden chill depression. That former fear of the unknown, experienced at Bukowiec, now took possession of her.
Kotlicki leaned with one elbow on the table and looked absently into the crystal carafes containing the arrack. ”

“ Janina rubbed her eyes, for it seemed to her that this meeting had been merely a hallucination.
"No, that cannot be," she whispered to herself, for she still felt upon her face the pure gaze of his peaceful old eyes and heard his voice saying: "Be good! Pray! Forgive!" She repeated the words to herself as she walked along the street.
"Forgive!" and she saw her father and afterwards the theater, Cabinski, Majkowska, Kotlicki, Mme. Anna, and Sowinska and remembered those days of suffering, abuse, and insult. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She watched the acting of her mother, hissing between her teeth with dissatisfaction. Finally, she bent over toward Majkowska and whispered so that Janina could not hear her: "Just look how that old woman is playing!"
"Who? Your mother?"
"Yes. Just look at the eyes she is making at that fellow in the high hat! Hopping about like an old turkey hen, too! Gee whiz, how she has dolled herself up! She's bent on making herself look young and doesn't even know how to make up her face decently. I am ashamed of her. She thinks that all are such fools that they will not notice her artificial beauty. ”

“ Janina asked herself, greatly terrified. "If they do not need us then we ought to let them alone, keeping ourselves apart from them and living only for ourselves and with ourselves." But again everything became confused in her mind and she could not conceive how it would be possible to live apart from the rest of humanity and concluded that it would not be worth living at all in that way. ”

“ She, of course, knew what to think about those others, whom long ago she had classified as fools, light-heads, drunkards, gossipers, silly geese and house-hens; small and shallow souls, a band of common eaters-of-bread, sunk in the shallow morass of material existence. And these people that filled the theater and doled out applause, and whom she had once thought of as demi-gods were they the same as those others? Janina asked herself, that, wonderingly. ”

“ The hero of the strange and terrible drama, or, rather, series of dramas, unfolded with such spirit, skill, and vividness in Janicsárok végnapjai, is Ali Pasha of Janina, certainly one of the most brilliant, picturesque, and, it must be added, capable ruffians that even Turkish history can produce. ”

“ Janina did not know whence these dreams came, but they would visit her ever more frequently in spite of the poverty which again began to grow more distressing, and the frequent hunger that gripped her as it were in bony embrace. Her bracelet again went to the pawnshop, for she continually had to buy some new article of wear for the stage, so that often she was forced to deny herself food only to be able to buy what she needed. New plays were continually presented to draw the public but success was as far off as ever. ”

“ Majkowska stood there hissing and laughing together with Zarnecka and loudly voicing her opinion of Janina's acting. Topolski, the stage-manager, made her leave and reenter the stage several times, for in her excitement, she did not enter properly.
Janina knew what they were doing, so she did not take very much to heart Mela's ridicule or Topolski's pedantic instructions. She played on and rendered her role forcibly, if a little unevenly. ”

“ Wherever one turns there is mud and filth!"
And so great grew Janina's indignation, that she cried almost aloud through her tears: "Base wretches! wretches! wretches!"
Soon afterwards, Wladek returned bringing with him the powder, a bottle of whisky and a package of sandwiches. He eyed Janina curiously and looked about the room.
"The counselor was here!" she flung at him harshly.
The actor laughed cynically and exclaimed in a barroom jargon, "I cornered him. Now we can have a little feast."
Janina was about to tell him how base he was, but suddenly there rang in her ears those words: "Be good! ”

“ Often, she would be seized with a mad desire to stop one of those well-dressed ladies and ask her whether she knew what poverty was. She observed intently their faces, their clothes, and their smiles and came to the painful conclusion that these ladies could not know that there were other people who suffered, wept, and were hungry. But later Janina began to reason that she herself was dressed in the same way as these other women ”

“ A storm of some kind only could uproot her and carry her far away from home in the same way as it uprooted the trees and scattered them over the desolate fields. She was waiting now for some chance happening to cast her into the world. Krenska, in the meanwhile, kept her informed of the activities of the provincial theatrical companies. Janina made certain preparations and savings. Her father paid her regularly the interest on her inheritance and this enabled her in a year's time to lay aside about two hundred rubles. ”

“ To these financial considerations Pacho Bey added some practical ones. Speaking as a man sure of his facts and well acquainted with the ground, he pledged his head that with twenty thousand men he would, in spite of Ali’s troops and strongholds, arrive before Janina without firing a musket. ”

“ One day, after we came back to town I was reading, not thinking of anything but the book—Janey least of all. Nothing in that book could have reminded me of her. I read it over afterwards to see. I looked up all of a sudden, thinking of Janet—thinking of her as if I had been with her an hour before. I dropped the book and felt as if I had just seen her, standing at the door in a familiar kimono, and heard her addressing me for the first time by that ridiculous nickname that she had just invented. I had heard through some people from her town that she was going to be married soon. ”

“ For I love you, Miss Janice, love you more
Though taken very much by surprise, Janice drew herself up proudly, and interrupted: “You forget—” she began.
“Of course I forget!” broke in the groom. “What would love be worth if it did n’t forget everything but itself? I forget I’m a bond-servant, you ’d say. So I should if I were a king. But you are too heartless to know what love is,” he ended bitterly.
“’T is not so,” denied Janice, angrily; “but I’ll love no redemptioner, though he be as good-looking and good-tempered as you are ill-natured and ugly.” ”

“ The large lady was rather a sight, it must be admitted; but as a choice between the two exhibitions of feminine vanity, it must be said that Aunt ’Mira was to be preferred. The strange girl’s gown was far from modest.
“I suppose one can’t expect much from you country people,” she said to Janice when the latter had politely led the horse past the car. “If you chance to get a car you don’t know how to behave on the road with it. Let me tell you, Miss, if I meet you with my horse again and you frighten him, I shall have you arrested—I don’t care who you are.” ”