The company had begun to play an act of a very lachrymose drama entitled The Daughter of Fabricius. Topolski appeared in the role of Fabricius and Majkowska impersonated his daughter. They played entirely well although Topolski was still so drunk that he didn't know where he was, but he nevertheless acted so perfectly that no one was aware of it. Only Stanislawski stood behind the scenes and laughed aloud at his automatic motions and the blank expression of his eyes. Majkowska was upholding Topolski every now and then, for he would have fallen on the stage. "Mirowska! come here and see how they are acting!" called Stanislawski to the old actress who was to-day apathetically disposed, his eyes glowing with feverish animosity. "That is my role! I ought to be playing it. Look what he has made of it, the drunken beast!" he hissed between his tightly set teeth. And when, applause, that was in spite of everything, merited, broke out, Stanislawski became pale with rage and grasped at one of the scenes to keep from falling over, so great an envy was choking him. "Cattle! Cattle!" he whispered hoarsely, shaking his fist threateningly at the public. Then he went to look for the stage-director but being unable to find him, came back. He continued to walk about excited and angry, scarcely able to stand on his feet. "My daughter! . . . My beloved child! so you do not spurn your aged father? . . . You press to your pure heart your criminal father? . . . You do not flee from his tears and kisses?" came floating from the stage Topolski's ardent whisper and struck the old actor so forcibly that he stood still, thrilled by the acting, forgot entirely about his envy, repeated those words in a whisper and put into those quiet accents of fatherly love so much feeling and tears, so much blood and inspiration and appeared at the same time so funny standing in the dim light behind the scenes with hands pathetically outstretched into empty space, with head bent forward and eyes fixed upon the rope of the curtain, that Wicek, who saw him, ran to the dressing-room crying: "Gentlemen, come and see Stanislawski showing something new behind the scenes." They all rushed in a crowd to view the sight and, seeing him still standing in the same pathetic pose, burst out laughing in unison. "Ha! ha! a South American monkey!" "That is an African mammoth, that has lived for a hundred years, devoured human beings, devoured paper, devoured roles, devoured fame until it died from indigestion," cried Wawrzecki, imitating the voice and speech of a provincial showman. Stanislawski suddenly roused himself, glanced in back of him and encountering the derisive gazes that were centered on him, trembled, and sadly dropped his head upon his breast.