The Comedienne Part 15

"You have talent, my word! My intuition tells me that. . . . Do not believe the testimony of the senses, mademoiselle, hold yourself aloof from all reasoning, throw to the dogs all calculations, but do not fail to believe intuition! . . ."

"Come here, editor . . . hurry!" called someone to him.

"Au revoir! au revoir!" he said, throwing a kiss to Janina and touching the brim of his hat as he disappeared.

Janina arose from her seat, but that same intuition which he had advised her to heed, told her not to take his words seriously. He seemed to her a light-headed individual given to hasty judgments.

That promise of notices and articles in the papers and his extravagant praises of her talent seemed to her merely insincere twaddle. Even his face, gestures, and manner of speaking reminded her of a certain notorious braggart living in the vicinity of Bukowiec.

The second act of the play commenced.

Janina looked on, but it did not carry her away as the first had done.

"How do you like our theater? . . ." asked the brunette chorus girl, whom she had met in the dressing-room.

"Very well!" answered Janina.

"Bah! the theater is like a plague; when it infects anyone, you might as well say amen! . . ." whispered the brunette, her voice hard.

Behind the scenes, in the almost dark pa.s.sages between the decorations there was a great number of people. The actors stood in the pa.s.sages and certain pairs were crouched in the darkness; whispers and discreet laughs sounded on all sides.

The stage-director, an old, bald man without a collar and dressed only in a vest, with a scenario in one hand and a bell in the other, ran up and down at the back.

"To the stage! You enter immediately, madame! . . . enter!" he cried all perspired and flushed, and ran on again, gathered from the dressing-rooms those who were needed on the stage, and at the appropriate moment whispered: "Enter!"

Janina saw how the actors suddenly interrupted their conversations, left each other in the midst of some sentence, stood down half-empty gla.s.ses, and rushed for the entrances, waiting for their turn, immovable and silent or nervously whispering the words of their roles, and entering into their characters; she saw the quivering of lips and eyelids, the trembling of legs, the sudden paleness beneath the layer of paint, and the feverish glances of stage fright . . .

"Enter!" sounded a voice like the crack of a whip.

Almost everyone started violently, hastily a.s.sumed the required facial expression, crossed himself a few times and went on.

Each time the stage door opened a thrill went through Janina at that wave of strange fire, that streamed toward her from the public.

She began again to lose herself in the play. That mysterious gloom, those garish hues and forms, emerging from the shadows and suddenly flooded with light, the strains of invisible music, the echo of singing, the sound of subdued footfalls and strange whispers in the darkness, the feverish rapture of the public, the glowing eyes, the excitement, the thundering applause, like a far-away storm, streams of dazzling light alternating with darkness, the throng of people, the pathetic ring of words, tragic cries, heart-rending sobs, moans, weeping, a whole melodrama, pompously and noisily acted all this filled Janina with a fervor different from the one she had felt in the first act, the fervor of energy and action. 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. Beer, whisky, and cognac were drunk and cakes were s.n.a.t.c.hed from a huge tray. Gusts of laughter broke out here and there, jokes exploded like fireworks in the air.

Some of the chorus girls had dressed and were going out into the garden.

Janina saw actors in their negligee only, parading up and down before their dressing-rooms; women, in white petticoats with naked shoulders and with half of their stage make-up removed, were strolling about the stage and peeping through the curtain at the public. On noticing some stranger, they would retreat uttering little shrieks, smiling coquettishly, and darting significant glances.

Waiters from the restaurant, maids, and stage hands went flying about like hunting hounds.

"Sowinska!"

"Tailor!"

"Costumer!"

"A pair of pants and a cape!"

"A cane for the stage and a letter!"

"Wicek! run to the director and tell him that it is time for him to dress for the last act!"

"Set the stage!"

"Wicek! send me some rouge, beer, and sandwiches! . . ." called one actress across the stage.

In the dressing-rooms reigned chaos, forced and hurried changing of dress, feverish make-up with cosmetics that were almost melting from the heat, and quarrels . . . .

"If you pa.s.s before me again on the stage, sir, I'll kick your s.h.i.+ns, as I live!"

"Go kick your dog! My part calls for that . . . here, read it!"

"You intentionally hide me from view!"

"What did I tell you!" said another. "I merely popped out and immediately there arose a murmur of applause."

"It was only the wind and that fellow thinks it was applause,"

answered another voice.

"There was a murmur of disgust, because you bungled your part."

"How the deuce can one keep from bungling when Dobek prompts like a consumptive nag?"

"Speak yourself, and I will then stop . . . we'll see what a fool you'll make of yourself! . . . I put word after word into his ear as with a shovel and . . . nothing doing! . . . I shout out so loudly that Halt kicks at the stage for silence . . . but that fellow still stands there like a dummy!" retorted Dobek.

"I always know my part; you trip me up intentionally."

"Tailor! a belt, a sword and a hat . . . hurry!"

"Mary! if you tell me to go, there will go with me night and suffering, loneliness and tears . . . Mary! do you not hear me?

I . . . It is the voice of the heart that loves you . . . the voice . . ." repeated Wladek, pacing up and down the dressing-room with his role and gesticulating wildly, deaf to all that was going on about him.

"Hey there, Wladek . . . put on the soft pedal. . . . You'll have enough opportunity to roar and groan on the stage until our ears are sore," called someone.

"Gentlemen! haven't you perhaps seen Peter?" inquired an actress, poking her head through the door.

"Gentlemen, see if Peter isn't sitting somewhere under the table,"

mocked someone.

"Milady . . . Peter went upstairs with a very pretty little dame."

"Murder him, madame! he's unfaithful!"

Such were the remarks, punctuated with laughter, that greeted her.

The actress vanished and from the other side of the stage one could hear her asking everyone, "Have you seen Peter?"

"She will go crazy some day from jealousy over him! . . ." remarked someone.