omewhat surprised.

"During the last two years I have read nothing but dramas and
dreamed of the stage," she answered simply.

"Truly it is worth bending the knee before such enthusiasm!"

"Why? All that is necessary is to help it, to give it a field, an
opportunity. . . ."

"If I only could. . . . Believe me when I say, that with my whole
heart I desire to see you reach the heights of art."

"I believe you," Janina answered in a quieter tone. "And I thank you
very much for Doctor Robin."

"May I copy out the role for you?"

"I will copy it myself; it will give me a certain pleasure."

"While you are learning it, I could act as a prompter for you, if
you like."

"Oh, I should not want to take up any of your time . . ."

"Exclude a few hours each day for the performance and the rest of my
time is yours to dispose of as you will," he said with fervor.

They gazed at each other a moment.

Janina gave Wladek her hand; he held and kissed it for a long time.

"Beginning with to-morrow I shall start to learn the part for I have
a day off," said Janina.

"I also do not appear on the stage to-morrow."

Wladek went out a little angry at himself, for although he called
Janina a "comedienne" she had made him feel abashed with her
simplicity and enthusiasm. Moreover, he felt in her a certain
intellectual and artistic superiority.

Janina feverishly applied herself to the study of Doctor Robin. In a
few days she knew not only the role of "Mary," but had memorized the
entire play. So intensely eager was she to play the role, that it
seemed as though she were staking her whole life on this
performance. Her former dreams that had been subdued a bit by
poverty and the feverish life of the theater now again burst forth
with a flaming intensity that dazzled and hypnotized her. The
theater again took so powerful a hold on Janina that there was no
room in her consciousness for anything else. In her hours of ecstasy
it appeared to her like a mystic altar suspended high above the gray
vale of everyday life and glowing with flames like a second burning
bush of Moses; it seemed to her like a miracle that endured
eternally.

Wladek came to see Janina each day in the interval between the
rehearsal and the performance, although he was already beginning to
be immensely bored by her endlessly repeated raptures and was
growing impatient over the fact that in her mad absorption in art
she did not pay much attention to him. He cou