to myself? Must I continually lean on
someone for support? Must there always be someone watching over me?
The others know how to help themselves, why can't I?" she asked
herself.

Janina pondered over this, but a moment later she went to the
pawnshop to redeem her bracelet and on the way bought herself an
inexpensive autumn hat.

Life dragged on for her slowly, sluggishly, and wearily.

Janina was sustained only by the hope, or rather by a deep faith
that all this would change radically and soon, and in this longing
anticipation she began to pay ever more attention to Wladek. She
knew that he loved her. She listened almost daily to his confessions
and proposals, smiling deep within herself and thinking that in
spite of all she could not become that which her companions became.
Their mode of life aroused a deep aversion in her for she felt a
truly organic revulsion to all forms of filth. But these attentions
of Wladek had at least this effect, that they awakened in her for
the first time conscious thoughts of love.

She dreamed at moments of loving a man to whom she could give
herself entirely and for all time; she dreamed of a united life full
of ecstasy and love, such a love as poets presented in their plays;
and then there would pass before her mind the figures of all the
great lovers about whom she had read, passionate whispers, burning
embraces, volcanic passions and that whole Titanic love life, the
remembrance of which sent a tremor of delight through her.

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.

Such a situation harassed and tormented Janina dreadfully, robbing
her of her strength, but it also awakened a rebellion which began to
seethe silently within her. She felt at first an indefinable
animosity toward everybody. She regarded with a fierce envy the
women whom she met on the street.

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