l see about that, Mother!"

Mrs. Rosinska turned to Stanislawski, who sat beside her all the
while and chatted without drinking anything. She began to make
remarks about Majkowska, with whom she was always on a war footing,
for they had almost the same repertory and Majkowska had, in
addition, talent, youth, and beauty, none of which Rosinska
possessed. Rosinska hated all young women, for in each she now saw a
rival and a thief stealing her roles and her favor with the public.

Lately she had become intimate with Stanislawski for she felt that
something similar was happening to him. He never spoke to her about
it, nor ever complained, but now, when he bent toward her his thin,
waxen face all seamed with wrinkles as fine as hairs, his yellowish
eyes glowed gloomily.

"Did you notice how Cabinska played to-day?" she asked him.

"Did I notice?" answered Stanislawski, "I see that every day. I know
long ago what they are . . . long ago! What is Cabinski
himself? . . . A clown and tightrope walker who in our days would
not even have been permitted to play the part of a lackey! . . . And
Wladek! he's an artist, is he? . . . A beast who makes a public
house of the stage! . . . He plays only for his mistresses! His
noblemen are shoemakers and barbers, while his barbers and
shoemakers are loafers from the water front . . . What do they
introduce on the stage? . . . Hooligans, the street, slang and
mud. . . . And what is Glas? . . . A drunkard in life, which is a
minor consideration, but it is not permissible for a true artist to
wander about taverns with the most disgusting hoodlums; it is not
permissible for a true artist to introduce on the stage the
hiccoughs of a drunkard and vulgar brutality. . . . Take
Ziolkowski's The Master and the Apprentice for instance: there you
have a type, a finished type of a drunkard presented in broad and
classical outlines; there is gesture and pose and mimicry, but there
is also nobility. What does Glas make of that role? . . . He makes a
filthy, repulsive, drunken shoemaker of the lowest order. That is
their art! . . . And Piesh? . . . Piesh is also not much better,
although he bears the stamp of a good artist . . . but his acting is
a miserable and an everlasting botch; he has a humor on the stage,
like that of fighting dogs, but not human and noble . . . and not
ours! . . ."

He became silent a moment and rubbed his eyes with his long skinny
hand with thin, knotty fingers.

"And Krz