ut what am I going to do?" That question smote her now and then, as
with a club.

Day began to dawn and flood the room with its drab and gray light,
but Janina still sat on the same spot, gazing blankly out of the
window, with deeply sunken eyes and whispering with lips blackened
by fever: "What am I going to do? What am I going to do?"

CHAPTER XI

The season ended. Cabinski was leaving for Plock with an entirely
new company, for Topolski had taken away his best forces and the
rest had scattered among various companies.

In the pastry shop on Nowy Swiat, Krzykiewicz, who had broken with
Ciepieszewski, was organizing a company of his own. Stanislawski was
also starting a small company on a profit-sharing basis. Topolski
was already preparing his company for its trip to Lublin.

The local garden-theaters were all closed for the season and a
deathly silence reigned over them. The stages were boarded up and
the dressing-rooms and entrances locked. The verandas were strewn
with broken chairs and rubbish. The autumn leaves fluttered from the
trees and torn scraps of programs of the last performances rustled
about sadly in the breeze. The season was over.

Nobody visited the theater any more, for the migratory birds were
preparing for their flight, only Janina from force of habit, still
would come here, gaze a moment at the deserted haunts and return
again.

Cabinska wrote her a very cordial letter, inviting her to her home.
Janina went there and found that they were already packing up for
their journey. Immense trunks and baskets stood in the middle of the
rooms, a large pile of various stage paraphernalia together with
mattresses and bedding lay on the floor the entire outfit of a
nomadic life.

In Cabinska's room, Janina no longer found either the wreaths or the
furniture, or the canopied bed; there shone only the bare walls with
the plaster broken here and there by the hasty removal of pictures
and the pulling out of hooks. A long basket stood in the middle of
the room and the nurse, perspiring from her exertion, was packing
into it Pepa's wardrobe. Cabinska, with a cigarette in her mouth,
directed the packing and continually scolded the children, who were
tumbling in great glee over the mattresses and the straw strewn
about the packages.

She greeted Janina with exaggerated cordiality and said: "There is
such a dust in here that it is unbearable. Nurse, be careful how you
pack, so that you don't crush my